Veterans' Section

On Memorial Day, 1961, the War Veterans Council of Oak Park dedicated a Field of Honor at Forest Home Cemetery located in Section 20. The Field of Honor included a flagpole, bronze memorial plaque, and rows of flat markers, designed to replace me practice of placing individual flags on veterans' graves. This section shows the increased importance of in-ground grave markers during the post-World War II era.

Columbia Post #706

Columbia Post No. 706

Picture1929 Photograph from University of California
Located in Section 43 lots 2 & 3 this monument to the Columbia Post No. 706 no longer has the solider statue on top of it. At some point the monument was toppled and the solider removed. Today there is only the stone base and the individual grave makers surrounding it.


Civil War veteran Wilbur Fisk Crummer
(1843-1920)

Picture
Civil War veteran Wilbur Fisk Crummer (1843-1920) is buried at Grand Army of the Republic memorial with his second wife, Emma. From Galena, he joined the 45th Illinois Infantry at age 18 and survived the battle of Shiloh. He took a bullet to the chest at the Battle of Vicksburg and was rejected from the surgeon's tent as being too injured to survive. But survive he did, propped against a tree overnight, and he went on to work as an employee of Chicago Title and Trust and raise a family in Oak Park at 143 Kenilworth Ave.

Information courtesy of Forest Park Review


Gen Milo Smith Hascall
(1829-1904)

Civil War Union Brigadier General Hascall graduated from West Point in 1852. After spending a year in the artillery service, he became a contractor for the Northern Indiana Railroad. When the Civil War began, he enlisted and was commissioned Colonel of the 17th Indiana Infantry. Assigned to brigade command in the Army of the Cumberland, he was promoted Brigadier General in April, 1862. He participated in the Battle of Stone's River and then fought in the Siege of Knoxville in 1863. In the Atlanta Campaign, he led the 2nd Division of General William T. Sherman's XXIII Corps and resigned in October, 1864. After the war, he became a banker and entered the real estate business in Chicago, Illinois. (bio by: John Griffith)