Chicago Hovey, Ligare and Steele Families

I recently traveled to Chicago for the first time ever.  I had a little window of opportunity to go to one of my family's most favorite cemeteries: Forest Home Cemetery in Forest Park, IL.  There I was able to meet a few of my ancestors.  It was very nice and peaceful in the cemetery.  I only had about 10-15 minutes there, but it was worth the hour driving.

The Hovey family was one that was split up for some unknown reason.  The story goes that the mom, Pamelia (Snow) Hovey, couldn't keep her family together.  Her oldest child was 13 when her husband died in 1876 so maybe she just couldn't be a single mom at that point.  In any case, two of her children were adopted by the Hurlbut family of Chicago.  One was Charles Hovey Hurlbut and the other was Alice Hovey Hurlbut.  So I went over to the Hurlbut family plot to visit Charles.  Charles and Alice were the siblings to Edith F, who married Edward Ligare (see below).  There wasn't much to the Hurlbut plot and they had really simple gravestones.  Here is the plot.

And here is Charles with his wife Marian; it was slightly disappointing since there were no dates, but it was still nice to visit. 

Here is the Ligare family tombstone.  They just bought one big one and buried everyone under it, I guess.  The Steele family plot is just to the right of this one.  They were buried right next to each other.  Here is one side for George G. Ligare, born Aug 1, 1821 and died July 27, 1901 along with his wife Elizabeth Grey (Steele) Ligare, born May 7, 1829 and died November 6, 1886.  

Here is the side for Edward F Ligare.  He is George and Elizabeth's son.  He was born 1866 and died 1935.  He married Edith F (Hovey) who was born in 1868 and died in 1963.  This side was hard to get a good picture of because of the sun.  

The next side belongs to some of the children of George and Elizabeth.  Their names were Clara, who was born Feb 27, 1858 and died Feb 25, 1861 and Myra, born June 15, 1864 and died Sept 18, 1866.  These would have been Edward's sisters.  The sad part about this gravestone is that it adds "and infants."  How I wish I knew how many infants there were and their names.  I would love to be able to join them to their family. 

The last side is for Ashbel George Ligare (who was obviously named after family members!).  He was born in 1849 and died in 1933.  He is also the child of George and Elizabeth.  If you look to the left of the picture you can see the spire of Ashbel Steele's gravestone. 

Here are all the graves of the Ashbel Steele family plot.  Ashbel Steele was born in 1794 in Derby, Connecticut and died in 1861.  His is the tall spire. 

Here is a close up of his. 

Right next to him, on the right, is his wife Harriet (Dawley) who was born in 1809 and died in 1895.

The rest of the tombstones are for some of their children.  You can easily read the names and dates.

And then I looked at the surrounding gravestones (because that is what you always do when you are visiting graves) and I found one for Joseph Leslie Steele, 1883.  I don't know who he is related to but it seemed like he might just be part of my family Steele, so I took a picture of him too.