Queen of Heaven Cemetery - History

History

Queen of Heaven was consecrated in 1947. The cemetery maintained its own office until 1965, when operations were combined with neighboring Mount Carmel Cemetery. Currently, the cemetery is 472 acres (1.91 km2) in size, and there are currently over 122,451 people buried there. There are approximately 3,215 annual interments at Queen of Heaven.

In addition to regular graves, Queen of Heaven was the first area cemetery to have religious shrine sections. One of these is the "Shrine of the Holy Innocents," where young victims of the 1958 Our Lady of the Angels School Fire are interred. In these sections families could purchase plots for all its members all at once, and not incur future charges.

Queen of Heaven Mausoleum, adjacent to the cemetery, has 30,000 crypts and 64 columbarium niches. There is also a garden crypt complex, with 25,729 crypts and 720 columbarium niches.

The Queen of Heaven mausoleum complex has room for over 33,000 bodies and is at this writing about 75% filled. Present is huge gallery of stained glass, statuary and carved wood and statuary in marble, bronze and mosaic. The art in the west wing of the main building was carried out mostly by DaPrato Studios of Chicago, with an international array of artists/architectural designers,(including a few from the Chicago area) artists such as : Italo Botti, Angelo Gherardi (Italy/USA), Urano Bottari (Italy USA), Laurence Campbell (Ireland), Professor Emeritus Peter Bagnolo (Oak Park Illinois), and a number of others.