Before Rose Hill Cemetery came into existence, Marion, Illinois citizens were buried at the old Marion Cemetery, aka Aikman Cemetery. When the city started growing and more space was required Rose Hill was established in 1884 and some of the graves were moved from the old cemetery.

Rose Hill Cemetery was started with about ten acres of land 586 feet wide and 748 feet in depth, purchased in 1882 while Leroy A. Goddard was Mayor of Marion, Illinois. When Leroy, a successful banker, later moved and was living in Chicago, he donated the money to build Goddard Chapel as a monument to the fallen of World War I as well as establishing a fund for its future maintenance. The original plot was filed with the county January 12, 1844, and work began that year. The original plot is on the East side of Route 37 and surrounds Goddard Chapel.

The original Rose Hill was divided up into 839 burial plots and Thomas Jefferson Goodall was the first person to be buried there on Jun 18, 1884.

In 1911, the city bought 18 acres across Route 37 west of Rose Hill and named it Maplewood Cemetery.

In 1919, the Trustees of Rose Hill  purchased 32 additional acres of land surrounding Old Rose Hill Cemetery to the north and south and under the direction and advice of landscape architects and engineers planned and placed under construction one of the finest park cemeteries in Southern Illinois.

The south addition was originally owned by a private corporation which originated the system of perpetual care.

For many years, the burial plot owners in the other cemeteries had the responsibility of mowing and caring for their own plots but when the city accepted the perpetual care section from the private owners, the maintenance of the cemeteries was accepted by the City of Marion.

In the late 1970’s, Marion accepted the East Lawn Memorial Gardens (on 148, near the airport) from a private trust. Marion accepted maintenance of that cemetery five miles west of Marion with funds included in the trust. This was changed when ownership was shifted to Crain Funeral Home.

In 2012, the Marion City Cemetery department began the task of making information and graves easier to find since the cemetery had gotten so large. Their database of grave burials is available online and localized printed maps are stored in kiosks throughout the cemetery to aid in locating gravesites. In early 2013, a video surveillance system was in the process of being installed to help with vandalism and mischief.

I was told once by the cemetery sextant that the cemetery currently holds over 30,000 graves, of which, almost 10,000 are currently unknown due to missing records.

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(Extracted from Glances at Life by Homer Butler; Marion City Cemetery; compiled by Khani Duncan and edited by Sam Lattuca on 02/18/2013)