Ever since he was a little kid riding in the back seat of his family’s car down Harlem Avenue, Jimmy Sullivan was 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 of the cemeteries I’ve seen before were nice. They were upkept. There were multiple headstones.
“So, it really surprised me that there was even a cemetery here to begin with. It doesn’t have any signage. There is no good entrance.”
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 pass by the property without knowing it’s a cemetery and home to some Orland Park history. And those who do know it’s a cemetery probably shake their head because of how run-down it is.
Sullivan will be trying to earn an Eagle Scout rank by cleaning up the place and making it an attractive place for people to visit.
With the exception of Orland Park village staff cutting the grass, Sullivan said the last real landscaping was done at the property in the 1970s. The gravestones are ancient with the most recent being placed in 1917.
“There is a lot of work that I would like to put into the cemetery,” Sullivan said. “One of the major things is to remove the overgrowth. There could be headstones buried under the brush. There are dead trees. There are some stones that there is no way you can get to.
“There are some graves 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 get to the entrance, add signage people can see from Harlem and add historical signs inside the cemetery.
Sullivan has been raising money for the project and is seeking out arborist companies to remove large dead trees, along with volunteers for cleanup. Thus far, he has raised close to $10,000 on his gofundme page and is seeking $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 owned it. Then he had to cut through some red tape to get this project started.
And that doesn’t include all the research he has done trying to find who is buried there. With the help of area historians Brad Bettenhausen and Libby Paulson, he discovered Orland Park’s second mayor, Carl Burkhardt, is buried there along with his wife, Louisa. Louisa died in 1917 and was the last person to be interred there.
“I’m still researching this, but there is a chance Carl might be a Civil War veteran,” Sullivan said. “It’s very hard to find those records.”
Michael Sullivan, an architect who is helping with the preliminary plans for the project, is proud of his son tackling such a large undertaking.
“I said wow that’s a big project,’’ Michael said. “But knowing Jimmy, if anyone was going to take it on, he can take it on. He’s done an awesome job of planning.”
The plan is to wrap things up with a grand opening in April so he can get his Eagle status.
But he is not going to rush things. He wants to get everything right.
“I have until I’m 18 to get it and I’m turning 16 so I’m not in a huge rush,” he said.
Aside from this project, Sullivan is a member of the Sandburg Marching Band and started his year off on a fun note as the band marched in the New Year’s Day Parade in London, which organizers called “the greatest event in the greatest city in the world.”
Sullivan had a great time at the event.
“It’s crazy to me how really happy they were to see us,” he said.
Jeff Vorva is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.