Ever since he was a little boy sitting in the back seat of his family’s car on Harlem Avenue, Jimmy Sullivan had been curious about an abandoned cemetery.
He asked his father, Michael Sullivan, about it.
“When he told me it was a cemetery, I was shocked,” Jimmy said. “All the cemeteries I saw before were nice. They have been maintained. There were several tombstones.
“So it really surprised me that there was even a cemetery here in the first place. There is no signage. There is no right entry.
Years later, the Sandburg sophomore is still fascinated by the place at Harlem AVenue and 153rd Street, known as the Old German Methodist Cemetery.
It’s easy to drive past the property without knowing that it’s a cemetery that houses a part of Orland Park’s history. And those who know it’s a cemetery are probably shaking their heads at its state of disrepair.
Sullivan will attempt to earn the Eagle Scout rank by cleaning up the place and making it an attractive place to visit.
With the exception of Orland Park Village staff cutting the grass, Sullivan said the last real landscaping was done on the property in the 1970s. The headstones are old, with the most recent dating from 1917 .
“There’s a lot of work I’d like to do in the cemetery,” Sullivan said. “One of the most important things is to eliminate proliferation. There might be headstones buried under the brush. There are dead trees. There are stones that you cannot access.
“There are tombs that you can’t even see because they are flat. I want to make all graves accessible.
He also wants to add a path to the entrance, add signage that people can see from Harlem and add historical signs inside the cemetery.
Sullivan has been raising money for the project and is looking for tree companies to remove the large dead trees, as well as volunteers for cleanup. So far, he’s raised nearly $10,000 on his gofundme page and is looking for $5,000 more.
The Orland Park Troop 318 member also did a lot of legwork to find out the name of the property and who it belonged to. He then had to clear some red tape to get this project off the ground.
And that doesn’t include all the research he’s done trying to find who’s buried there. With the help of area historians Brad Bettenhausen and Libby Paulson, he discovered that Orland Park’s second mayor, Carl Burkhardt, was buried there with his wife, Louisa. Louisa died in 1917 and was the last person to be buried there.
“I’m still researching this, but there’s a chance Carl is a Civil War veteran,” Sullivan said. “It’s very difficult to find these documents.”
Michael Sullivan, an architect who is helping with the project’s preliminary plans, is proud that his son is tackling such a large-scale project.
“I said wow, this is a big project,” Michael said. “But knowing Jimmy, if anyone wanted to do it, they can do it. He did a wonderful job of planning.
The plan is to wrap things up with a grand opening in April so he can earn his Eagle status.
But he’s not going to rush things. He wants everything to go well.
“I have until I’m 18 to get it and I’m 16 so I’m not in a big hurry,” he said.
In addition to this project, Sullivan is a member of the Sandburg Marching Band and started his year on a fun note as the band marched in London’s New Year’s Parade, which organizers called “the biggest event in the biggest city of the world. .”
Sullivan had a great time at the event.
“It’s crazy how happy they were to see us,” he said.
Jeff Vorva is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
