Elburn cemetery may expand

St. Gall Cemetery in Elburn may soon have room for more.

The Elburn plan commission Tuesday recommended St. Gall Catholic Church be allowed to expand the cemetery onto property south of the current burial grounds. The land, 1.4 acres, is between the cemetery and the baseball field at the Elburn and Countryside Community Center. St. Gall's has a contract to buy the land from Hall Brothers Real Estate LLC. The matter now moves to the village board.

The plan commission requested that church officials obtain a letter from the current owners stating that they approve the change in zoning. The small cemetery has burials dating back to 1882, when the new parish bought 1.25 acres on what was then the outskirts of town. In 1942, it added another acre.

According to the church's application, not much would have to be done to the site other than extending the current driveway through it. No additional entrance or exit on to Route 47 is planned.

The church's cemetery committee has long been interested in the parcel, said the Rev. Karl Ganss, the parish's pastor. It became available upon the recent death of a longtime owner.

It's mostly parishioners buried there, "although we likely would not turn anyone away," Ganss said. "The whole idea is they should believe in the sacredness of the ground." Catholics believe that as followers of Jesus Christ, they will someday be resurrected from the dead, and that Catholic cemeteries are, therefore, sacred spaces.

St. Gall Catholic Church was founded in the 1880s. It has 780 member families worshipping at its home at Shannon and Main streets. It owns about 40 acres at Hughes Road and Route 47, where it plans to build a new church. If it ever ran out of room in its cemetery, it would consider adding a cemetery at the new church, Ganss said. In 2004, the Rockford Diocese announced plans to create a 47-acre cemetery at Route 47 and Kenmar Drive.