You’ve probably see this horrific story about Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, Illinois:
Burr Oak is the final resting place of many well-known figures such as Emmett Till, Dinah Washington, and Willie Dixon, along with at least 25 Negro League ballplayers, including John Donaldson and Candy Jim Taylor. Because the scheme targeted older, obscure graves, the burial spots of more famous people have most likely gone undisturbed. But it may be a different story for the remains of Hall of Famer Pete Hill.
According to Hill’s death certificate, his body was shipped from Buffalo to Chicago, where he was to be buried on December 25, 1951. The name of the Chicago cemetery, however, is not given. Jeremy Krock has been searching for Hill’s burial spot for some time. The first place he went to look was Burr Oak, where he and others had already placed markers on the graves of 12 Negro Leaguers, but with no luck.
Hill’s real first name (John) had been forgotten for decades, to be rediscovered by Patrick Rock only recently. If this scheme had been going on for years, the grave of “John Hill,” who died in 1951 and was not known to be any kind of celebrity, might have been a prime target.
Pete Hill is just one of many Negro Leaguers whose Chicago-area gravesites have not yet been found, and there is no evidence so far that Hill was actually laid to rest at Burr Oak. But this scandal does introduce a note of uncertainty. The conspirators apparently destroyed the paperwork of the graves they plundered, making it that much more difficult to know for sure. Still, many of the markers for the plundered graves have been found in a storage shed, so if Pete Hill was victimized, it’s possible his could be among them. Jeremy has reported Hill’s name to the authorities, so we’ll see.
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