Permanent Residents of Schaumburg

The holiday weekend included a visit to Septemberfest, the not-very-German festival that Schaumburg, Illinois, puts on each Labor Day weekend. It was lively and crowded. This year I noticed that the carny games were offering Angry Bird plush toys as prizes, along with Rastaman bananas, which I think I saw last year.

Not far away is a much quieter place, the graveyard of old St. Peter Lutheran Church near Schaumburg Road, which is much more German than Septemberfest is ever likely to be. I've posted about it before, but without pictures. This is old St. Peter.

And its cemetery, populated by diaspora Germans and others.

Many of the permanent residents of the cemetery were born in Germany, or had parents who were. I suspect that Friedrich Redeker here (1813-96) was one of the former.

A few of the names, such as Springinsguth, are now major street names in this part of metro Chicago.

According to the Schaumburg Township Historical Society, burials began at St. Peter in 1847, and its permanent residents now number over 1,000.