rosehill cemetery in edgewater.

an historic park of the dead--slumbering men and women, who once breathed irrepressible life, commerce, industry, grandeur, scandal in to chicago, and ultimately-- made the city relevant, raising it from its ignoble beginnings.

located in rosehill is the little known horatio n. may mortuary chapel, a diamond in the rough. built in 1899 as an eternal memorial to one of chicago's first paid firefighters, who was also a major grocery and dry goods supplier, horatio may.

it was designed in 1899 by the underappreciated architect joseph lyman silsbee, upon the request of mrs. anna may, who paid the princely sum of $75,000 to honor her husband.

the mortuary chapel is a romanesque gothic, represented well by its fortress-like, almost ominous architectonic form. the portico's arches, made of monolithic, minnesota gray granite, offer entry through two carved wooden doors.

green tile wainscoting below and walnut panels above divide the interior walls, Grueby faience tiles, soaring cathedral-like arches-- all elements orchestrated to create a grand and noble setting befitting end of life tributes.

behind the main carved door, at the head of the chapel, under lock and key, is a dank, long abandoned, white tiled mortuary, which was built in to the earth, to provide natural refrigeration.

the mortuary was once used to receive up to 100 dead during winter months, until ground could be broken in the spring.

it is an intriguing, however historically somber reminder of how the departed were maintained when the ground was too frozen to accept their remains...