Due south of Mount Emblem Cemetery are twin burial grounds, Arlington Cemetery and Elm Lawn Memorial Park, also in Elmhurst, Illinois. On Saturday I headed south from Mount Emblem along County Line Road, fully intending to find an entrance to I-290 and proceed home, but I noticed the two cemeteries before I got that far.

I’ve been driving by those cemeteries for years, seeing them from the highway, not realizing they were distinct and never getting around to seeing them any closer. Though the afternoon was getting chillier and patches of snow still covered the ground, I figured I’d take a look.

These images are of Arlington Cemetery, which is to the east.


These are of Elm Lawn, to the west.


A better aesthetic than Mount Emblem, which is say more standing stones, and the cemeteries ought to be nice in the spring and summer. It’s hard to tell in the winter whether these concerns, of some years ago, have been addressed.

As a casual visitor, there was no difference between the two. No fence or other demarcation. I noticed that the Arlington office building was permanently closed, with a sign referring visitors to go to the Elm Lawn office a few hundred feet away. Indeed, according to the cemetery’s web site, the two have been combined under single ownership for more than 25 years.

The permanent residents probably don’t care about any of that. If they do, they’re keeping quiet.

A small section of Elm Lawn (I think) that I drove by is designated the Valley of Peace Shia Cemetery, which must be fairly new. Considering the demographics of the northwest suburbs, that’s thinking ahead on the part of cemetery ownership.