By Nick Wilder
In this era of Covid we have tried to socialize at a distance on our sailboat and at the golf course. Those options aren’t available to us in November; so we’ve decided that walking with friends is the best way to stay healthy and in touch. Our first walk with friends in Chicago was around Graceland Cemetery at the corner of Clark Street and Irving Park Road. Graceland is both a cemetery and an arboretum on a 119 acre site. It was developed in 1860 before Chicago’s municipal boundary stretched that far north. Many of the “residents” were relocated from a cemetery in the then fast growing Lincoln Park neighborhood two miles to the south. A sunny day in November is a good time to walk around Graceland. The low sunlight creates interesting shadows on the monuments and the oak trees are particularly dramatic looking without leaves.
