Queen of Heaven Cemetery
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Queen of Heaven Cemetery is a Roman Catholic cemetery in Hillside, Illinois, a suburban community near Chicago. The cemetery is operated by the Archdiocese of Chicago.
Queen of Heaven is located at Wolf and Roosevelt Roads, near the Eisenhower Expressway (Interstate 290), and is adjacent to two other cemeteries. One is another Catholic cemetery named Mount Carmel Cemetery, and the other is the secular Oakridge Glen Oaks Cemetery.
Queen of Heaven was consecrated in 1947. The cemetery maintained its own office until 1965, when operations were combined with neighboring Mount Carmel Cemetery. Currently, the cemetery is 472 acres (1.91 km²) in size, and there are currently over 122,451 people buried there. There are approximately 3,215 annual internments at Queen of Heaven.
In addition to regular graves, Queen of Heaven was the first area cemetery to have religious shrine sections. One of these is the "Shrine of the Holy Innocents," where young victims of the 1958 Our Lady of the Angels School Fire are interred. In these sections families could purchase plots for all its members all at once, and not incur future charges.
Queen of Heaven Mausoleum, adjacent to the cemetery, has 30,000 crypts and 64 columbarium niches. There is also a garden crypt complex, with 25,729 crypts and 720 columbarium niches.
Legendary Master Puppeteer William B. Fosser is buried here. Former U.S. Representative Frank Annunzio is also buried at Queen of Heaven, as is former football team owner Charles Bidwell.
The mausoleum is also the infamous resting place of several Al Capone henchmen including Sam Battaglia and Paul Ricca.
