READ THE STORY BELOW
BUT FOR A DATABASE OF ALL KNOWN BURIALS, CLICK ON THIS LINK
https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/2225968/read-dunning-memorial-park
The most unique story of all Chicago area cemeteries. Located on Chicago’s Northwest side northwest of Irving Park Road (4000 North and Narragansett (6400 West), nine miles from Downtown |
It served as an institutional cemetery and more important, it served as the official county Potters Field for the unclaimed and unwanted dead of Chicago and Cook County. The cemetery received bodies from the Cook County Hospital, the city morgue, many Chicago area hospitals, and many city social institutions.
Land set aside for pauper burials is so very vulnerable in our changing world. Living relatives are often difficult or impossible to locate, and neither the public or private sector readily accept the responsibility to care for old forgotten cemeteries.
We who believe that every life is sacred, must continue to remind ourselves and society that in this world and after death, we still care for those who have gone before us. We make no judgments, but simply commend them to the mercy of our loving Creator. We may not have known them personally, but they were someone’s Mother, Father, Grandparent, or neighbor. It has been written: To live and die alone is a human tragedy, but not to be remembered and mourned…after earthly life…is an ugly blemish on human dignity. These persons, though their earthly lives ended in loneliness and poverty, in unique ways unknown to us, they did share in the divine creation and eternal destiny that is common to our humanity.
Preserving Cook County Cemetery and continuing research will help to insure that those persons who were homeless in life will not be homeless in death.
FOR A DATABASE OF ALL KNOWN BURIALS, CLICK ON THIS LINK
https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/2225968/read-dunning-memorial-park
Chicago and Cook County Cemeteries 
I wasn’t aware of this cemetery. I agree that it needs to be preserved as part of our history and in memory of those buried there.
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My Grand mother passed away in the Chicago tuberculosis sanitarium in October of 1931.
I am curious if her remains were buried there. Her name was Georgia Irwin Cox Jenne’.
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no one was buried at the sanitarium. contact the Cook County medical examiners office for assistance
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Unclaimed bodies from the Chicago Tuberculosis Sanitarium were buried at Montrose Cemetery along the fence line near Bryn Mawr Ave in unmarked graves.
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Good evening! One of the links you have listed in this article no longer works. Do you know where I can go to search the database it is referring to? Thank you!
For the entire story, and a free searchable database of some 7000 names:
http://www.cookcountycemetery.com
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I am so sorry. A bug within the hosting service causes my website to crash. I have successfully reset it, thanks for letting me know.
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Good evening! The following link mentioned in your article no longer works. Do you know what the new URL is to access the searchable database mentioned? Thank you!
For the entire story, and a free searchable database of some 7000 names:
http://www.cookcountycemetery.com
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it has been rest and back up. sorry
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My great grandfather, Louis Besse, was likely buried at Dunning. A French Canadian immigrant, he died of “consumption” at the Alexian Brothers hospital in 1882, and his death certificate indicates that he was buried at the County Cemetery. He was working as a brickmaker, probably sending what little money he had to his family in Bourbonnais.
It’s frustrating to think that there was so little regard for the people buried there that no permanent records were kept. RIP Louis.
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