‘A moment of memory they deserve’
Monuments to century-old war can fade, but new effort hopes to give them remembrance
Cropsey, Illinois, isn’t officially a town. Rather, it’s a five-block cluster of homes under mature trees, a tiny oasis amid the vast corn and soybean fields northeast of Bloomington.
It’s a place that’s easy to miss but for a group of towering grain elevators on a railroad siding.
That was the scene as Matt Seymour turned onto Main Street, which runs alongside the tracks for a block and half.
“My phone didn’t even work in this very rural area,” he said. “And when I rolled into town, there was no one around.”
Seymour was on a two-week quest that took him all over the state, from Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago to tiny hamlets such as Cropsey, in search of monuments dedicated to World War I. A historic preservation consultant, he’d been hired by Landmarks Illinois to compile information for a new database of the monuments for a project that began amid the 100th anniversary of the war.
He’d received word about a monument in Cropsey, namesake of Cropsey Township, where the most recent census data indicates about nine people live per square mile.
It didn’t take Seymour long to find the monument on a little triangle of grass across the street from the grain elevators. A tall flagpole proudly flying the American banner marks the spot of a limestone boulder affixed with a bronze plaque stating “World War Memorial.” It was dedicated Oct. 5, 1929 by American Legion Post 648.
“It was just a simple stone with a plaque,” Seymour said. “But it was an interesting place for this little monument to be.”
There’s still an American Legion Post 648 in Illinois, though it’s nowhere near Cropsey. But the town’s monument to World War I is well maintained. People there care about it, even though the war it
commemorates is a distant memory.
That’s the whole point, said Suzanne Germann, the director of reinvestment at Landmarks Illinois.
“We are people saving places for people,” she said. “These are places in peoples’ communities, and as they find them significant then we will too.”
There are hundreds of World War I monuments in the organization’s databases, from boulder-set plaques in tiny towns to giant sports complexes such as Soldier Field in Chicago and Memorial Stadium in Champaign.
The list includes whole streets, such as Giles Avenue in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood, dedicated to the memory of Lt. George Giles, the highest-ranking officer killed in the war from an Army regiment commanded entirely by Black officers.
It includes a bridge over the Mississippi River in Quincy, and the much more ornate New York Street Memorial Bridge over the Fox River in Aurora. There’s an Elm Tree in Lake Forest that was planted in 1921 “In honor of our hero dead who served in the World War,” and 14 more trees planted along Brainerd Avenue in LaGrange, one for each soldier from there who was killed.
Germann said the project started with a 2017 grant from the Pritzker Military Foundation to create a program honoring the 100th anniversary of U.S. engagement in World War I, which included a matching-fund grant program to help restore WWI monuments throughout the state.
“We realized that we don’t know where many of them are,” she said. “We had to do a survey so we know who to reach out to and who to help.”
Landmarks Illinois hired a Downstate researcher and reached out to veterans organizations and municipalities through social media channels. Later, they hired Seymour to travel and visit all the monuments they learned about.
That resulted in the database the organization just announced last week. The day it was announced, people informed the organization of more memorials that weren’t on the list, including one in Plainfield.
“He was surprised we didn’t know about it, and we were surprised we didn’t know about it,” Germann said.
It’s helping spread word about the grant program as well, she said.
“People are finding out there’s money out there to help, so they’re saying ‘let’s do this,’ which is what we wanted.”
Already, Landmarks Illinois has helped bring some of the World War I monuments back to life, including one in Chicago’s Beverly neighborhood that was rediscovered in 2012 in a corner of Dan Ryan Woods by volunteers clearing invasive plants, according to a 2017 Daily Southtown report. The monument was eventually moved to a more prominent place in the forest preserve, and had its bronze plaque restored, “and now it’s gorgeous,” Germann said.
The database also includes monuments that have disappeared, such as a doughboy — referencing the soldier outfit unique to World War I — statue that once graced Palmer Park on 111th Street in Chicago’s West Roseland neighborhood.
The cast metal sculpture called “Over The Top” of an American infantryman atop a stone base was documented there as recently as 2008, according to an Inventory of American Sculpture compiled by the Smithsonian American Art Museum, but it’s missing now, according to the Landmarks database. It’s similar to one placed in 1922 in Davidson Park in Elgin, according to the Smithsonian.
Other monuments have disappeared as well.
“Maybe some of these have moved,” Germann said. “Maybe now they’re in a school or put in a safer place.”
A clue to the fate of some of the missing memorials may come from a restored monument in West Pullman Park on 123rd Street in Chicago.
There, a stone obelisk was installed in 1919 to honor the 7,000 soldiers from the area who died in the war. It originally was topped by a bronze eagle and included bronze plaques inscribed with the names of those who died in action, according to the Chicago Park District. But in 1942, the bronze was removed from the monument and melted down for use in World War II. The plaques were later replaced by granite panels, but the eagle was lost forever.
Many of the monuments in the database were created in the 1920s and ‘30s, when World War I was still the “war to end all wars.” That, of course, wasn’t the case and some of the WWI monuments became commemorations for all war veterans.
And there are monuments that tied World War I to earlier conflicts, such as one in Chicago Heights adjacent to Woodrow Wilson Woods, named for the World War I-era president. That moment was dedicated in 1921 “In honor of our heroes,” including “Civil War Veterans, Spanish American Veterans and World War Veterans.” A more recent plaque adds veterans of the wars that have followed.
Other monuments are more personal in nature, such as one in Evergreen Park in memory of brothers Gail Woodman, “who died of wounds,” and Roy Woodman, “who died in service,” adding it is also “dedicated to all who served this country from this village in the Great World War.”
In his travels documenting the monuments from Quincy on the west to Charleston on the east, from north of Rockford to Cairo on the south, Seymour said the monuments have similarities throughout the state, though the more “grandiose” ones tend to be concentrated in the Chicago area. Many involved great artistry, such as the doughboy statutes, but even the more simple monuments were interesting and beautiful in their own right.
He is most proud of having had the opportunity to share photographs of the monuments.
“My main contribution is to help people see these things,” he said. “I think that’s important.”
Often, monuments that have been around for decades or even nearly a century tend to get absorbed into the landscape. They’re far removed from the pomp that accompanied their establishment, and they’ve become part of the background, unnoticed by people busily going about their lives.
Germann said that’s what the database project hopes to change.
“I’m hoping people really look around and read that monument as they pass by,” she said. “Even in Downtown, in Grant Park, there are all these monuments. Who are they for? Take a moment and take a look.
“Give these people a moment of memory that
they deserve.”