35th Annual Tales Tombstones Tell - Self Guided Tour
Welcome, history enthusiasts and curious minds! We're thrilled to invite you on a virtual journey through time with our self-guided tour of the 35th anniversary "Tales Tombstones Tell." This blog series will take you on a captivating exploration of local history, one gravestone at a time. Each post features the script and an accompanying video recording from a different stop on the cemetery walk, allowing you to experience the rich stories and forgotten tales etched in stone. Whether you're a longtime resident or a newcomer to our community, prepare to uncover the fascinating lives, triumphs, and tragedies of those who came before us. Let's embark on this historical adventure together, as we bring the past to life through the whispers of our Oakwood cemetery.
John Reed Benjamin (1872-1944)
Interpreters: Maureen and Jim
Stop Four
Jim: Good evening, my name is John Reed Benjamin. I was born on December 14, 1872 on a farm in Wayne Township. The farm was on the site of what is now Wheaton Academy and was known as Benjamin’s Grove while I was growing up there. I was the oldest son of Robert Benjamin. You may know our family name. My grandpa had come to this area after serving during the War of 1812. He established a 1,000 acre farm on what is now the north side of town, but was all open prairie when he arrived. As one of the first farming families in this area my dad thought it was important to establish a school. Our one-room schoolhouse grew into what is today the longest operating school district in the state of Illinois, Benjamin School District 25. My dad was a very successful farmer and when he retired my brothers and sister split up the large Benjamin estate.
Although I had grown up on a farm, I wasn’t sure farming was my calling. For a few years I worked as a carpenter and then like the vast majority of men in West Chicago I got a job on the railroad. I first worked as a fireman for the Chicago & NorthWestern Railroad. Trains today don’t have this job any more with your fancy diesel engines. My job was to feed coal into the locomotive’s firebox, keeping the steam engine in motion. It was a dirty job, but it paid well.
Maureen: Being married to a railroad man brought stability but it also brought a lot of stress. My name is Jessie May Hayward. I was John’s second wife, and much younger than him;) We married in 1908 when I was just 22 years old after his first wife Violet had passed away. John and I met when he was working as a fireman on the railroad-it was a hard job and doing the laundry to try to get his work clothes free of all the coal dust was maybe an equally hard job I had the burden of doing. We had two daughters, one from John’s previous marriage, and were very happy with amongst our huge extended Benjamin family here in West Chicago. One of John’s brothers had married a Kline girl, perhaps you have heard of her family’s farm that your Forest Preserve District runs as Kline Creek Farm. Her father Casper Kline had established that farm in the early days of settlement in DuPage County much like the Benjamin farm. My family, the Haywards, are also known around town, but not for farming. The stories of my sisters, the famous or rather infamous Hayward twins, Carrie & Clara, are well-known, but those are stories for another day.
John and I had a home at 444 Claremont, just down the road from here and not far from the house we Hayward kids grew up in. John worked hard and eventually became an engineer on the railroad, a much less taxing job, but the years of shoveling coal as a fireman had taken a toll on his body.
Jim: I retired in 1942 after working for the railroad for 45 years. I was lucky, unlike some other train men buried in this cemetery, I survived the dangers of working on the moving trains, but I passed away two years after my retirement. In one of those odd twists of fate, after years of shoveling coal, I died while shoveling snow on December 10, 1944. I was 71 years old. My obituary noted that I had been struggling with heart problems since my retirement and the exertion of shoveling the snow was too much.
Maureen: John was a proud member of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and the Amity Lodge. We held his funeral at the First United Methodist Church with the Masonic rites. I passed away 22 years later and was laid here to rest next to John and one of our daughters. Thank you