Information provided by Jan Doan of Claremont, IL.

In October 1995 a letter was received from Jan Doan of Claremont, Illinois. She was responding to the announcement that Where The Trails Cross, Volume 26:1 would feature Batchelor's Grove Cemetery.

My great grandmother Edna Wright Hardy Sanderson was buried at Bachelors Grove in 1907. Her tombstone disappeared about twenty-five years ago. My grandmother Helena Josephine Carlson Hardy was also buried at Bachelors Grove when she died in 1914 but she was removed to the Lutheran cemetery, on 127th Street just west of Crawford Avenue, in the spring of 1955. My grandfather Harry Hardy died December 24, 1954. His children, Alice, Upton, and my father Fred, decided that he would be buried at the Lutheran cemetery on the same lot as his brother Albert Hardy. Bachelors Grove was not what it had been and they did not want to bury my grandfather there.

I am enclosing a copy of Edna Wright Hardy Sanderson's death certificate listing Bachelors Grove as place of burial. I'm also enclosing a copy of my grandmother's death certificate which does not give Bachelors Grove as place of burial but I know she was buried there. I wonder if at one time that cemetery was called Schmidt's? Or did the person who filled out the certificate make an error as to place of burial? In Where The Trails Cross, Volume 7:1, page 19, it states that when Edward Everden sold land to Frederick Schmidt in 1864, one acre was set aside to be used as a grave yard. Perhaps Bachelors Grove was also referred to as Schmidt's.

My father, Fred Hardy, lived at the corner of 147th and Ridgeland as a child. The house was still there about five years ago. My grandfather was Upton Hardy but he was always called Harry. My Grandmother's brother was Albert Carlson. He lived on the farm just east of my grandfather. Fred Hardy emigrated from Lincolnshire, England, in 1886 with his brother, Albert. Two of their sisters came to the area a few years later.

Edna Wright Hardy Sanderson was born in Sutton St. James Lincolnshire in 1829. She married Henry Hardy in 1851 and gave birth to seventeen children. Thirteen reached adulthood and four removed to Cook County, Illinois. Henry Hardy died in Lincolnshire in 1885. Edna first came to Illinois in 1893 to visit her children and attend the World's Fair in Chicago. She returned to England after three months and married William Sanderson. After his death, she again visited with her children in America in the fall of 1906. She became ill, was unable to return home to England, died here and was buried at Bachelors Grove. I've often thought how sad it was that this lady with so many descendants ended up alone in a cemetery so far from home. And I'm probably the only person who knows she is there! All of her grandchildren are now deceased and I'm the only one of the next generation interested in genealogy. Just last year I discovered a third cousin in England who had spent several years trying to find out what happened to Edna. He had no idea that she had children in America or that she herself had come for a visit and died while here.

My grandfather Upton "Harry" Hardy married Helena Josephine Carlson on March 3, 1907. Both were employed at the Midlothian Country Club when they met and married. They had three children before her death in 1914: Alice Hardy 1908-1986; Upton Hardy 1910-1984; and my father, Fred Hardy 1912-1984. When Josephine died she was buried on the same lot as her mother-in-law.

I went to Bachelors grove Cemetery at least twice a month from spring to fall for many years. My Dad and Grandpa would cut the grass around the graves, trim the hedge, plant and water flowers and, in general, take care of the area. My brother, Glenn Hardy, and I often walked the short distance down the road to where the bridge was out over the crick and play in the crick. Sometimes we could get across on big rocks and logs without getting wet and other times we fell in. My Grandpa's brother, Albert Hardy, had owned a farm across the crick in the early 1900's. When I was going there in the late 1940s and early 1950s, it was forest preserve and no buildings were standing where his farm had been. As children, we were never allowed to go near the quarry on the back side of the cemetery. I remember when the big gate was installed so we couldn't drive down to the cemetery any more. It was always a fun afternoon when we went out there.

My Grandpa moved into Blue Island about 1930 and I was born there in 1940. I moved to southern Illinois after I married in 1964 and have been the editor of our Richland County, Illinois Genealogical Society quarterly for eighteen years. I returned to the area for the funeral of my uncle Upton Hardy. My husband and I took my Aunt Alice Hardy out to Bachelors Grove. We were aware of the vandalism that had occurred in the cemetery and that Edna's stone had been missing for many years. My parents, Fred and Georgia Hardy, had stopped there in the late 1960s and discovered that the stone was missing then. I could, and did, walk to where Edna's grave is. I'm sure I was within a few feet of her grave. the stone of Bernard Deck 1876-1949 was still there and it was close to her grave.

Edna's son, Albert Hardy and my grandfather Harry Hardy, lived in Blue Island in later years and both died there. her daughters were Lucretia (Bab) Clarke and Edna Clarke. They married brothers Jack and William Clarke. The Clarke brothers were also from the village of Sutton St. James Lincolnshire. Lucretia had two children, Harry Clark and Ada Clark Erp. Both died in Midlothian in recent years. Edna had one daughter, Ethel Wilkening, who died in 1993 at ninety-nine years of age. She was the last of that generation.

Edna Wright Hardy Sanderson is one of my favorite ancestors. Her life is most interesting. She did many things that a Victorian woman in England did not do. Even though her tombstone is missing from Bachelors Grove Cemetery, please not for posterity that she is buried there.

Jeannette (Jan) Hardy Doan
R.R. 1, Claremont, Illinois 62421

Although the photocopy of the Cook County, Illinois death certificate is too dark to reprint here, it does state that Mrs. Edna Sanderson had lived in Illinois 9 Months 10 Days; had died in Blue Island, Ills.; date of burial was September 1 - 07; and the place of burial was "Bachelors Grove Cemetery."

Janice Helge