Showmen’s Rest

With the recent awful train wreck in Philadelphia in the news, it was natural that Showmen’s Rest and the Hammond Circus train disaster of 1918 came up in news stories as well. This terrible, fascinating story caught my attention and being a morbidly curious person, I couldn’t help but check out the memorial site.
In June of 1918 a train conductor fell asleep at the wheel, causing his train to plow into the back of the 26 car Hagenbeck-​Wallace Circus train filled with circus employees and animals. Of the 400 or so on board, about 61 of the total 86 victims of the wreck are buried here at Showmen’s Rest (many of them unidentified or only known by their circus names, as seen in the photos). The tribute is tastefully done and very touching to visit, in honor of these poor folks who lost their lives doing what they loved.
This site is also an enormous plot dedicated to circus performers that pass away all across the country to this day, with 750 plots on the western side of Woodlawn Cemetery belonging to the Showmen’s League of America. The site is a beautiful and touching tribute to the craft, with giant granite elephants in trunks-​up salute at the four corners of the land. An enormous elephant statue and dedication marker is located in the center, near where the individual victims’ graves are found. The site also hosts the International Clown Week celebration each year in August, a remembrance of circus performance and a celebration of their performances.

Yes ladies it’s very interesting isn’t it. Sadley my family is buried there. Knew the elephants were there but never realized the story till the last couple of years. When we go it was always to set flowers or for sad reasons so the subject never really came up. My cousin his wife and my husband and I love the mystery spooky stuff as well I just learned Water For Elephants is based on the people on that train that sad night. Didn’t see it mentioned didn’t know if you knew.

With in minutes of The Brookfield Zoo, and Loyola health care, Showmen’s rest is a cemetery that Honors Americas Showmen namely circus performers. Once I arrived I realized I had been here before once long ago as a young child. It’s memories have continued to stick with me some 25 years later. If you are out and about in the area you should swing by. For the full story and hisotry look down below at Candice’s review I could not of put it better myself.

On June 22^nd, 1918, a locomotive engineer in charge of operating an empty US troop train heading to Chicago from Kalamazoo nodded off at the wheel while closely following a slower circus train carrying roughly 400 members of the Hagenbeck-​Wallace Circus en-​route to a performance in Hammond, Indiana that next day.
Shortly after 4am, the sleeping engineer of the empty troop train missed two automatic signals and various other warnings sent by the then stopped circus car, and plowed into and through the rear four wooden cars full of sleeping circus performers.
Of the 400 on board the circus train, 127 were badly injured and 86 killed. Half the Hagenbeck-​Wallace Circus, depleted in moments. And while it is thought that most of the 86 casualties died in under a minute of the collision, there were a few who lived long enough to make it to a nearby hospital, though most were so badly burned from the fires that erupted when the kerosene lanterns (used to provide light for the then made-​of-​wood sleeper cars) collided upon impact with the empty, unmanned troop train, that the deceased and soon-​to-​be, were no longer recognizable.
Flashback 5 years earlier in 1913, when the Showmen’s League of America was formed to help provide care and better living for circus folk everywhere. One of the first orders of business for president and co-​founder of Showmen’s League, Buffalo Bill Cody, was to purchase burial space for the purpose of providing a peaceful final resting place for passed performers who were without the family and means to provide burial for themselves. It was from here that Showmen’s Rest, a 750-​plot section within Forest Park’s Woodlawn Cemetery, was born.
After the horrific crash, the Hagenbeck-​Wallace Circus only cancelled 2 of their next scheduled shows, the one they had been traveling on the morning of the crash, in Hammond, and the next in Monroe, Wisconsin, as even competing circus companies like Ringeling Brother’s and Barnum & Bailey, as well as members of nearby communities banded together to loan whatever they could, performers, equipment, extra hands, food, clothing and anything else, to ensure that the show did go on.
The funeral for the deceased entertainers took place 5 days after the crash. 56 of the 86 killed that fateful day remain in their final resting place at Showman’s and many of the graves within the mass burial-​site are marked not with birth names, but with nicknames and descriptive words used playfully in life, now identifying in death. Among the more well known, ‘baldy’, ‘smiley’ and ‘4 Horse Driver’ and also mixed in with other extraordinary names that even though unfamiliar in this day, paint a rich life story, like Vito ‘Dapper’ Dispenza and John ‘Mr Crumbles’ Romano.
You can visit this piece of history and road-​side wonder, marked by 5 large cement, elephant memorial statues. It’s not something you’d devote an entire day to, but it’s one of the few great, unique pieces of history, albeit formed from tragedy, housed and still growing in the Chicago suburbs and certainly worth a trip if you’re anywhere near the area.
Every year, on the Sunday before Memorial Day, circus performers and general lovers-​of-​life gather to pay their respects, lay flowers and perform in honor of the fallen greats and prove them proud by ensuring the show did go on.
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This 1000^th review is dedicated to Teri ‘Snookie the Clown’ Fogarty of Wheaton, Illinois. Simply, one of the greatest performers and people I’ve ever had the fortune and pleasure to meet.

Cemetaries have stories but Showmens Rest has a destination. You really need to know the beginning to understand the end so here goes…
Its all about the day of 1918 when a train accident left Circus folk dead and with no family, many where buried under «unknowns». Sad but true, this part of the cemetary has become really popular amongst Chicago and other subarb folk. Check out the history on google and read more about it.

Showmen’s Rest is a local tourist attraction in a neighborhood cemetery just outside Chicago. It’s actually the final resting place for many circus folk dating back to the early 1900s when a train carrying a circus en route to Hammond, IN crashed and 56 showmen were killed.
Elephant statues surround the Showmen’s plot just inside the cemetery entrance. Once a year the showmen gather in full regalia and join in «A loving and festive remembrance of their circus brothers past.» Yes, that means clowns and circus performers doing what they do best.
If you enjoy cemetery trivia, Resurrection Mary’s father is also supposedly buried in an adjacent cemetery just north of Woodlawn, and on the other side of Des Plaines Road, you’ll find the plots of early twentieth century anarchists and may even run into a Gypsy burial in progress.