Salem Cemetery

On Saturday we went a bit further north than our usual orbits, looking for a Pepperidge Farm outlook store known to be up that way. Found it as a tenant in a strip center on Plum Grove Road in Rolling Meadows, which actually starts as Meacham Road in Schaumburg—where Plum Grove parallels it. But the Plum Grove we know ends on the south side of I-90. North of I-90, there’s a road called Old Plum Grove, which merges into Meacham, and then the whole thing becomes Plum Grove again north of that junction.

That's more detail than really necessary on those streets, but if we hadn’t had a map, we wouldn’t have been able to figure that out. Maps are good.

Between Plum Grove and the strip center’s parking lot is a lumpy crescent of land occupied by ten upright tombstones and a few trees. A sign facing the street says, SALEM CEMETERY, PALATINE TOWNSHIP. Other family members went looking for bread and cookies. I took a look at this small burial ground. On a Saturday afternoon, it’s a noisy place, with a lot of cars on Plum Grove passing by. I noticed that the graves were pre-World War II at least, some from the 19th century, and two written in German.

From the Encyclopedia of Chicago: “The community became part of newly formed Palatine Township in 1850 as German immigrants arrived. In 1862 they erected the Salem Evangelical Church, whose 40-foot-square church cemetery at the corner of Kirchoff and Plum Grove Roads still stood in 1998, a bit of history amid bustling traffic and a strip shopping center.”

From the Palatine Township web site: “Salem Cemetery was established as a family cemetery in the 1850’s by Frederick and Dorothea Thies. It was deeded to the Salem Evangelical Church in 1922. Palatine Township was given custody of the cemetery in 1974. The cemetery, located at Plum Grove and Kirchoff Roads, consists mainly of members of the Thies, Normeier and Weseman families.