Aurotech Employee Tim Noonan shares his passion for preserving our American History with the restoration of a WWI Monument found abandoned and forgotten in the Dan Ryan woods of Chicago in 2012. Read more below about Noonan's journey to discover the details of this rare WWI monument and to view the final restoration.

The official re-dedication of the memorial will be November 8, 2018. It falls just three days before the 100-year anniversary of Armistice Day, which ended World War I. Anyone interested in donating to help restore the monument can visit http://www.ccgsm.org/ and click on the Donate button.

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Noonan explains:

Late in 2011, Cook County forest preserve was removing invasive species near 8700 South Western and discovered a forsaken stone monument. There was a small plaque affixed to the monument that read “Chicago Council of Gold Star Mothers” and the outline of a larger plaque. After much research, it was determined that this was a First World War Memorial Tablet Monument built by Gold Star Mothers. The Gold Star Mothers were families who lost loved ones in the war. In fact, it was a Chicagoan, George Vaughn Seibold's death that began the Gold Star Mothers movement. George Seibold's mother buried her grief by visiting wounded soldiers. Mrs. Grace Darling Seibold gave herself a sense of peace and purpose by devoting her time and energies to other mothers who shared this pain as well as caring for those soldiers who did come home from the Great War.

After years of planning, June 4, 1928, twenty-five mothers met in Washington, DC to establish the national organization, American Gold Star Mothers.

Out of Tragedy We Were Formed; Out of Love We Continue…

-American Gold Star Mothers

The Chicago Council of Gold Star Mothers Memorial Tablet Monument came to be when "officials from the War Department offered heavy cannons and other field trophies captured by the Allies in the course of the War." Yet, in November 1921, Cook County board president Dan Ryan stated “Let these cannon and other war trophies be converted into plowshares and other material for use in the arts of peace. “This was the third anniversary of Armistice Day, which later became known as Veterans Day, and the American people had no appetite for war.

He continued, “We have paid tribute to the glorious memory of our men who fell in battle by our actions in authorizing the erection by Gold Star mothers and fathers of bronze tablets and planting memorial trees in several of the tracts within the boundaries of the district.”

The Chicago Council of Gold Star Mothers erected and dedicated numerous memorial tablets throughout the Forest Preserves. In same period, this Monument was erected and dedicated at the Dan Ryan Woods Forest Preserve, also known at the time as Beverly Woods. The Council hosted and celebrated events such as picnics at the "memorial tablet".

Fast forward many decades when the monument was rediscovered…

The monument quickly began to deteriorate without the benefit of the canopy of trees and bushes. A community meeting was convened to determine the fate of the monument as time and exposure were quickly eroding the structure. Modie Lavin, a local Gold Star Mother of fallen hero U.S. Marine Cpl. Conner Lowry, who was killed in Afghanistan in 2012, attended the meeting and stated how important it was to the ongoing legacy of the Gold Star Mothers.

It was determined to save the monument and, with the help of the local Beverly community group, Cook County Commissioners and the Cook County Forest Preserve, we were able to extract and safely store the monument to plan its restoration. A decommissioning ceremony and removal were held in November 2017. Modie Lavin circled back the relevance of this monument by stating, "...we know what was in the hearts of our sisters nearly 100 years ago."

During the extraction, an analysis report was conducted by a monument conservationist for the Forest Preserve and our community group. This report pointed out severe damage the monument had sustained at some point in its past. The brunt of the damage was at about the height of a car bumper which led to our team’s hypothesis that it had been struck by an automobile from the nearby busy intersection. This apparent accident would explain for the missing larger plaque. We are not sure when any of this might have occurred but what we can confirm is that many lifelong residents of the area surrounding the preserve that we’ve spoken with never knew of the monument’s existence. The once revered stone and bronze War Memorial had fallen on hard times and deserved to be brought back both through its restoration and brought back to a place of prominence to locals. That was our team’s mission.

We approach the advent of the centennial anniversary of Armistice Day on November 11th, 2018. This will mark 100 years since the end to fighting in the trenches “Over There” in the “War to End All Wars”. Yet, for many families, the end of the Great War was just the beginning of their journey in coping with loss. The war took well over 116,000 American lives over nineteen months. It is only appropriate that on Armistice Day, the end of that terrible conflict, that we remember and honor the sacrifice of all our country’s veterans.

Our community team eventually established a non-profit to help fund raise and pursue grant funding for the restoration of the Memorial Tablet Monument. As mentioned, we have worked very closely with members of the Cook County Board including Commissioner John Daley as well as the administration from the Cook County Forest Preserve including General Superintendent Arnold Randall. We recently were notified that our project was selected as a recipient of Landmarks Illinois’ WWI Monument Preservation Grant.

Additionally, Landmarks Illinois generously awarded our monument double the original full amount helping us cover the cost of a new bronze casting of the larger missing plaque. All the pieces are coming together as we get closer to the re-dedication ceremony on November 8th, 2018. Angels seem to appear when we need them most in the form of donations or key people that have helped the Chicago Council of Gold Star Mothers Memorial Tablet Monument get closer to its glorious return to a place of reverence in its community and the greater Chicago land area, a perpetual reminder of the cost of war, the price of our freedom, and a mother’s love.