Another perspective on the fight over St. Johannes Cemetery
Every gravestone in St. Johannes Cemetery has a story.
If you wander over to the Kolze section, it's a story of foreigners in a new land who learned its language, built its roads and shaped the future.
The graveyard is in the middle of a runway under construction at O'Hare International Airport as part of an expansion plan. It's also in the midst of a legal fight between Chicago and families with loved ones buried at St. Johannes who want the cemetery to remain intact.
Last week I wrote about Kim Emerson, who in February watched over the relocation of seven ancestors' graves by Chicago. The city handled the situation with "respect and dignity," she said.
Bob Sell and numerous other families strongly disagree. The disinterments are nothing less than religious sacrilege, said Sell, a descendant of two families, the Kolzes and Dierkings, with graves in St. Johannes.
The Kolzes immigrated from Germany in the 19th century and hit the ground running.
"They laid down the roads, they literally put planks in the mud," Sell said. "They were the fabric of the new society."
His great, great-grandfather, Henry Kolze, was a farmer and community leader who served as Leyden Township supervisor in the 1870s and 1880s.
Henry's brother, William, bought land in what is now Schiller Park in 1881 and built a popular inn called the White House. He became the town's honorary mayor and his daughter-in-law Julia Kolze was elected the state's first female mayor in 1932.
The Kolzes were firm supporters of the abolitionist movement, Sell said, noting his great-great-great-uncle and great-great-grandfather had beards that resembled Lincoln's.
Central to their world was St. John's United Church of Christ and the cemetery connected with it. "It was a tight-knight community and the church was where everyone came together," Sell said.
Another Kolze, Henry J., is remembered with a massive, gray obelisk. A shrewd businessman, Henry J. expanded his hotel and restaurant at Irving Park Road and Narragansett Avenue into a picnic grove and hot spot in the early 1890s, taking advantage of a new streetcar line. Dubbed Kolze's Electric Grove, it featured 5-cent beer and an orchestra so couples could dance into the night under gas lights. The grove is now Chicago's Merrimac Park.
Sell's other ancestors, the Dierkings, were blueberry farmers back in the old country and created orchards out of the prairie soil when they moved to Illinois in the 1800s. Kolze's ancestor Christian Dierking owned a fruit farm where the United Airlines terminal now sits.
After a lengthy court battle, Chicago acquired title to St. Johannes Feb. 8 but the case is under appeal.
"We understand this is an emotional process for the families involved. It is our intention to coordinate these relocations in as seamless a manner as possible while respecting the families' wishes," city officials said in a statement.
Sell said the issue isn't about property. St. Johannes followed ancient traditions of burying congregation members in a graveyard right next to the church as a "sacred, protected resting place." The positioning of the graves with heads to the west and feet to the east is symbolic of Christ's resurrection, he said.
And while there are sacred rites of burial, there is no rite of disinterment, which is troubling, Sell said. "As perpetual caretakers, the church has taken its role very seriously."
When he visits St. Johannes, "it's about the constant flow of life and death. For me, it serves as a place of connection to who we all are and where we came from. These are not simply bones in the ground. That is family."