Forest Home Cemetery Investigation

The Ghost Research Society and After Life Tours were the first teams to investigate Forest Home Cemetery!

For thousands of years, the Potawatomi’s and their ancestors lived in the area, which is now Forest Park. They buried their dead along the east bank of the Des Plaines River in the area that is at present, Forest Home Cemetery. Des Plaines Avenue is known to have been an Indian trail. It lies on top of an ancient sandbar that was on the western edge of Lake Chicago (now Lake Michigan) formed from the melt-water of the last glacier.

After Illinois entered the Union, most of the land west of Chicago was set aside for veterans of the war of 1812. By 1835, the area was known as Oak Ridge because of the many native oaks. In 1839 a French-Indian trader, Leon Bourassa, received a land grant from President Martin Van Buren of 160 acres along the Des Plaines River north of what is now Roosevelt Road. By this time, the Indians had been banished to west of the Mississippi River, but one Indian maiden remained to tend the graves of her ancestors. According to legend, she married Leon and they settled here on land which is now part of Forest Home Cemetery. The deed for the government land Bourassa purchased was personally signed by President Martin Van Buren and is now kept in the Forest Park Library.

In the Waldheim Cemetery, now merged with Forest Home, are buried Albert Parsons, Adolph Spies, Adolph Fischer and George Engel. These four men were executed on November 11, 1887 for their alleged part in the Haymarket Riot. Waldheim, the only cemetery that would accept the bodies, hosted over 15,000 persons who attended the funeral. Governor John Peter Altgeld later
exonerated the men and pardoned three others sentenced to life imprisonment. These seven soon became martyrs in the eyes of the labor movement. Ceremonies are now held at the gravesite each year honoring the fallen labor heroes.

The Chicago Helicopter Airways Flight 698 was a scheduled domestic helicopter service between Chicago Midway Airport and Chicago O'Hare Airport. On 27 July 1960 it was operated by a Sikorsky S-58C helicopter which departed Chicago Midway Airport with two pilots and 11 passengers. It crashed at Forest Home Cemetery, Forest Park, Illinois killing all on board.

The helicopter had arrived from Chicago O'Hare Airport at 22:15 CDT. It then departed on the return journey at 22:30 CDT in VFR weather conditions. During the flight, part of one of the main rotor blades broke away and the helicopter descended to attempt an emergency landing. The tail cone and tail rotor broke away and the helicopter spun nose-down into the ground at the Forest Home Cemetery in Forest Park and burst into flames.

The Civil Aeronautics Board determined that N879 crashed as a result of structural disintegration in flight and caused by a fatigue fracture of the main rotor blade. The Helicopter was a Sikorsky S-58C built in 1957 and registered in the United States as N879. It was delivered to New York Airways in January 1957 it was later sold to Chicago Helicopter Airways.

According to reports of the crash, pilot Robert Meyer, 37, of Worth, was thought to have maneuvered the 12-passenger Sikorsky S-58 away from a residential area in Maywood to bring the helicopter down. Thirteen people died in the wreck, which produced a ball of flames. Because of the heat, firefighters were unable to approach the wreck for more than an hour.

One of the first responders to the accident was auxiliary police Officer Bill Gauger of Forest Park, according to Review reports. He was patrolling The Park when he heard the sputtering copter overhead and jumped the fence at Forest Home Cemetery. According to the Review, every one of the 40 police officers and firefighters on the force, on or off duty, responded to the emergency.

When they arrived, Forest Park responders found bodies and wreckage that spread over the length of several blocks. The tail of the helicopter (featured in the photo above) was separated from the aircraft and an official from Chicago Helicopter Airways Inc. said it appeared the tail might have fallen off in flight.

When the fire was under control, local police and firemen removed the charred bodies from the wreckage and wrapped them in tarpaulins. The Review reported that they were transported to the Cook County Morgue in ambulances and two trucks donated by the Roy H. Mohr & Sons Oil Co.

“When [Forest Parkers] Howard Mohr, Bill McKenzie and Sam Gillian arrived at the morgue with two truckloads of bodies, they were told to unload them because there was no one else available,” the Review reported. “This involved taking the bodies and parts of bodies, off the trucks and emptying the tarpaulins onto trays. Mohr commented, ‘It was sickening.'”

Notable people buried here include: Belle Gunness, a serial killer from near LaPorte, Indiana; radio announcer Paul Harvey, father, mother & grandparents of Ernest Hemmingway, Haymarket Riot participants and 43 victims from the Iroquois Theater fire in 1903.

A car crashed through the gates on Halloween of 2018.

In July 1979, a father and son were visiting the cemetery and taking daylight pictures in order to document the vandalism that had recently occurred. They caught a very similar face-like image emerging from a small pile of dirt and shows up in both the father's 110 Instamatic camera and his son's instant Polaroid SX-70 camera.

Here are those images with enlargements.

Address: 863 Des Plaines Ave, Forest Park, IL 60130

Phone: 708-366-1900

Website: https://foresthomecemetery.net

Hauntings: Reports of shadow people throughout the cemetery and paranormal occurrences reported in the chapel.

The GRS investigated Forest Home Cemetery and the team included: Barbara Meagher, Ron Lovatt, Mari Huff, Andrew Puccetti and Dale Kaczmarek with help from Tim Schmuldt, Dean Thompson, Melissa Johnson and Amanda Pilgreen from Ghost Head Soup and Alycia Rosemin and Mike Drost. This was a private after-hours event set up by Mike Smith and John Klimek from After Life Tours.

Equipment setup: A REM Epod was placed in front of the chapel and a Melmeter with a proximity probe was nearby to document the Epod along with a K-II Meter. Digital cameras, camcorders, 4k Nightshot camera were employed as well as a green laser grid facing the front of the chapel. Also used was the Phasma Box and ParaTek app.

Personal experiences:

Mari Huff: I was partnered with John Klimek from Afterlife Tours, Mike Drost and Alycia Rosemin. I was using a Melmeter and my iPhone camera. I walked around the cemetery with the Melmeter, but didn’t pick up any anomalies. I took a lot of photos with my iPhone camera, but haven’t spotted any anomalies in the photos. Mike Drost downloaded some ghost investigation apps onto his phone, including the Ghost Tube SLS. He picked up a “green stick figure” while filming the basement of the large Lehman Mausoleum.

I had no personal experiences at the cemetery. John Klimek mentioned that he saw several shadow figures located throughout the cemetery. He noted that they were following us. My duties were to investigate with the Melmeter and take photographs, hoping to pick up some paranormal activities.

Although this was more of a history tour than a paranormal investigation I really enjoyed this excursion. I found it to be very informative and I learned a lot from our tour leaders. Highly enjoyable.

Ron Lovatt: The investigation of Forest Home Cemetery was in two parts. The first was a tour of the cemetery and stories of certain areas of the cemetery and the second was an investigation of the chapel.

Let me first say the cemetery portion was too long and not really worth anything except for a few places. The chapel investigation was to short but very interesting.

The chapel investigation: We did two EVP sessions with a Phasma Box and a Spirit Box. We also had Melmeters and REM Epod’s on the alter.

The first EVP session was interesting and we got the following responses. May I say there was background noise during this part of the investigation. The responses are...

Mary, Philip, probably, don't, chock, chairs, the box???, queen heaven, constant, boycott, Custer your touching it, captain Morgan, move the bench, scared, I'm a survivor, no, I'm jealous, very funny, outside.

During the session I felt there was a cold breeze that went past me. The REM Epod and Melmeter constantly went off even though the equipment was moved more than once. One of our investigator said he saw something move but I’m not sure what.

The Spirit Box session gave us the most interesting part because it was the question where are you. The answer was basement. We also got a lot of names. We found out later that there are hundreds of cremated remains in the basement.

The conclusion is the chapel is very haunted and we need a much longer investigation to get better evidence.

Barbara Meagher: Forest Park was toured and investigated. Several photos were taken. One has a mysterious mist on it that was not seen by the naked eye. An EVP session was conducted in the chapel and many individual names were caught on the Ovilus. It turns out there are many sets of unclaimed remains stored in the basement. I did several EVP sessions but did not catch any EVPS.

Andrew Puccetti: I stayed with the fairly large group the entire time. During my walkthrough, I used my full spectrum digital camera and a digital recorder. I took a lot of pictures, but ultimately didn't catch anything either outside or in the chapel. I also tried to do an EVP session in the chapel, but didn't catch anything. However, other members of the group had REM Epod’s up which did go off fairly often. Dale also got some good responses using an app on his computer. If Dale would like recordings of those, I have them on my computer, but I wasn't sure if he wanted them or had them already. I had no personal experiences that night. My duty that night was to use the equipment I had to document any evidence.

Dale Kaczmarek: For me, I found this walk-through very long and tiring. I had to take frequent breaks to get off my feet. There were some locations within the cemetery that I wished we could have spent more time at including the large mausoleum and a location with Emilee said that she saw some shadow figures. It would have been nice to have stopped there for a quick EVP session or at least to explore it a bit more.

We got a little turned around in the darkened graveyard which meant a little more walking than we should have done. It was murder to my feet and back that evening.

The best part which we didn’t have long to investigate was the chapel. After the long tour arriving at the chapel didn’t give us much time to explore that location which I believe was very active. The REM Epod, Melmeters with proximity probes and K-II Meters were going off near the altar of the chapel. Our EVP session was pretty productive as well.

We didn’t stop anywhere for long except near a large mausoleum, IOOF marker, some children that died in the Iroquois Theater fire and near the Haymarket Riot marker. No investigations or EVPs were conducted at any outdoor location.

Evidence collected:

To report to Captain Morgan home.MP4 – while conducting a Phasma Box session in the Chapel, the device suddenly blurted out, “To report to Captain Morgan.”

Words or phrases spoken by the Phasma Box: resulting, Erin, and its Philip, probably, protect me, chocking, constant, to report to Captain Morgan, scared, I’m a survivor and very funny.

Words spoken by the ParaTek app: upstairs, fan, Chloe, veteran, erase, leather, Aiden, party, rail, yellow, Adam, sample, that, seen you, them, spirits, quench, marker, Debra, bible, Nathan, UK, later, wash, hard, next, 4, Nanna, knew, grew, child, Jasper, Gary, bible, devil, Michael, fate, head, remote, trouble, raw, belive, have and bank.

Conclusions: I wished we could have been in the chapel longer and perhaps stopped at a few outdoor locations to conduct our sessions.

The two EVP sessions that we conducted in the chapel; Phasma Box and ParaTek app were very fruitful. There were quite a number of names called out including: Harriet, Chloe, Aiden, Adam, Debra, Nathan, Nanna, Jasper, Gary and Michael. Unbeknownst to us at the time, there were quite a few cremation remains of people in the basement of the chapel that had gone unclaimed. Perhaps those names were the spirits of those forgotten people which is sad. Just before all the names began to come through but before I had started the video, the word “basement” came through. Smith later informed us of those details. We weren’t able to go downstairs into the chapel. Maybe a follow-up visit and special permission could be granted to investigate downstairs.

There were references to the bible when Lovatt asked what do you do here and the word spirits also came through.

It would have also been interesting to investigate the sight of the helicopter crash as no one survived that tragedy.

Our walk-through and investigation of the chapel’s videos were saved on SD cards.