On Tuesday, December 18, Paula Everett and Kim Demas received a “Homefront Hero” Award from Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn in recognition of their dedication and continuing support of Veterans.
Everett, president of the Mt. Greenwood cemetery, and Demas, a cemetery employee, have successfully been petitioned the U.S. Government to formally mark headstones of veterans buried in unmarked graves throughout the cemetery.
In most cases, the soldiers have unmarked graves because no next of kin could be located. With no one to pay for burial costs, fallen soldiers were often buried without the extra expense of engraved headstones.
Everett and Demas began their crusade began almost six months ago and so far the duo have succeeded in petitioning the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for assistance in engraving 13 headstones, some of the fallen soldiers dating back to the Civil War.
While they have been successful so far, they still have 20 other applications pending and are only halfway through an alphabetical list of veterans buried in the family-owned cemetery.
Everett and Demas feel it is part of their duty to make sure these long-forgotten soldiers are not left in anonymous graves.“It is the last thing we’ll ever do for the soldiers,” Everett said.
The Mt. Greenwood Cemetery in Chicago has been at its present location of 2900 W. 111th Street since 1879, when the previous cemetery in Blue Island closed. All graves from the Blue Island location were transferred to Mt. Greenwood, some graves dating as far back as the early 1800s.
