One of the more pleasant drives in greater Chicago is along the Fox River. Two state routes parallel the river, Illinois 25 near the east bank and Illinois 31 near the west bank. The roads follow the river especially tightly from St. Charles to Oswego. During a recent drive on Illinois 25, I noticed North Cemetery, one of the six cemeteries in St. Charles (I later read).

“North Cemetery, aptly named for its location in relation to St. Charles, is the resting place for many of the community’s early settlers,” notes the St. Charles History Museum. “It was owned in the latter 1800s by William C. Irwin… Irwin was a cooper or barrel maker by trade. He was also the town funeral director for a number of years. He was probably best noted for developing Irwin’s Block, a collection of commercial buildings, located on W. Main St. between 1st and 2nd Streets. When he died in 1900, he was laid to rest in the cemetery he owned.”

Barrel maker, undertaker and commercial property developer: as always, I’m in awe of the professional flexibility of the 19th century, and just a little envious. I didn’t encounter Mr. Irwin during my short visit, since I never heard of him until later. But North Cemetery has a nice variety of stones, including some clearly from the early days of St. Charles.

Some very much beaten down by Time.

The cemetery is home to a few memorials of some size, but not so many. Before St. Charles became a far suburb, it was an ag village and river town. Prosperous, but even its city fathers were unlikely to have vast stores of wealth.

A mail-order memorial for veterans who, by 1902, were starting to disappear.

One such veteran. He was still around when the larger memorial went up, according to Find-A-Grave.

Another veteran. Who wasn’t born yet in 1902. There will always be more wars, though.

For years he rang the town bell.

A job as gone as Mr. Pettingell himself, who apparently was well enough known to a distant descendent to rate a spanking-new stone more than 150 years after his death.

Across Illinois 25 is another one of the St. Charles cemeteries, Union Cemetery. Mostly newer stones, including a poignant section for children: a patch of ground enclosed by a ring of bushes in the shape of a heart.

Not far away, this stone. For an adult.

Always something new. I, for one, had never seen a circus monkey on a grave marker.