Lee Bey: The Urban Observer

(photos by Lee Bey)

The severe concrete wall that surrounds Oak Woods Cemetery gives off a distinct impression: Don't come in here. Unless you have to.

The other side of that wall is worth exploring--whilst you can. Oak Woods features 125 acres of the city's best and most pristine landscapes. Yes, there are mausoleums, monuments, tombs, grave markers and the like. But there are four lakes. rolling topography, striking vistas and a variety of trees and other plantings. A vision of heaven. At 67th and Cottage Grove.

Oak Woods was designed by Prussian-born landscape architect Adolph Strauch who helped revolutionize 19th century cemetery design using lawns, open space and ideal placement of burial markers and monuments to create a feeling of peace and order.

The designs were also a way to fashion a modern response to death. Oak Woods and other cemeteries of the age helped liberate American burial from the province of crowded church properties and desolate boneyards---just as landscape architects Jens Jensen and Frederick Law Olmsted brought a new vision to urban parks.

Walking through Oak Woods--this is not a ghoulish thing; its a very stroll-able cemetery--is like a tour through a history book. Mayor Harold Washington, Cap Anson, Enrico Fermi, Kenesaw Mountain Landis and Jesse Owens are among the notables buried here. So are many folks who are forgotten to history, including World War II Marine Corps pilot Donald Aldrich who shot down 20 Japanese planes only to be killed in 1947 while landing at an airstrip (now gone) at 84th and Cicero.

I remain moved by this child's headstone, tended with dedication and a broken heart.

Six-thousand Confederate soldiers who died at Chicago's Camp Douglas are memorialized at Oak Woods. So is mobster Big Jim Colosimo. Or at least I think Big Jim is still there. After a visit I took there about two years ago, I ain't so sure.