A Parisienne in Chicago
Oakwoods Cemetery
Located at 1035 East 67th Street, the cemetery’s location is just a few blocks south of Jackson Park and the exposition site. Madame Grandin went to the cemetery on November 1, 1893 in order to celebrate All Soul’s Day.
On November 1st, All Soul’s Day, the weather was ghastly. The sky was filled with thick grey clouds and a torrential rain fell. In Chicago, November 1st is not a holiday as the protestant religion does not recognize the dead with any special kind of ceremony. With the miserable weather, I felt very sad on that somber holiday and was thinking about both the people I had left behind in France as well as the dead.
I very much wanted to visit a cemetery in memory of the friends that I had lost. Instead of leaving flowers on my friends’ tombs in France, I could leave some flowers on the grave of someone here in Chicago. Despite the frightful weather, I jumped on a streetcar and went to the cemetery south of the city.
