Homewood Memorial Gardens

Not to be confused with Homewood Cemetery.

Homewood Memorial Gardens
Details
Location	Homewood, Illinois
Country	United States
Coordinates	41°33′57″N87°37′44″W / 41.5658°N 87.6289°W / 41.5658; -87.6289
Find a Grave	Homewood Memorial Gardens

Homewood Memorial Gardens is a privately owned cemetery in unincorporated Cook County, Illinois. Many other unrelated cemeteries share variations of this name. This site may have formerly been called Oak Lawn Cemetery.

Potters' Field

The cemetery long served as Cook County's potter's field, providing interment for indigents and unclaimed bodies. Press reports in 2011 speculated the cemetery might have as many as eight thousand such bodies, many in mass graves. ^[1] Indigent and unclaimed bodies were buried at Homewood Memorial Gardens from 1980-2012. Since then, Cook County indigent remains are now buried at Mount Olivet Catholic Cemetery in Chicago. ^{[2] [3] [4]}

References

1. Johnson, Clara (February 18, 2011). "Poor stacked in mass graves at Illinois cemetery". St Louis Post-Dispatch. Associated Press. Retrieved October 25, 2018.
2. Anderson, Margaret (January 20, 2015). "Homeless dead cost Cook County hundreds per burial". Medill Reports Chicago. Retrieved July 31, 2025.
3. "Years After Body Stacking Scandal, Families Say Problems Persist At Homewood Memorial Gardens Cemetery". CBS News. October 24, 2019. Retrieved July 31, 2025.
4. Lebrun, Sylvan (October 16, 2024). "101 indigent, unknown people buried at Mount Olivet Cemetery with dozens of strangers there to mourn them; 'We're going to walk that last walk with them'". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved July 31, 2025.

41°33′57″N87°37′44″W / 41.5658°N 87.6289°W / 41.5658; -87.6289