With its leafy walkways and landscaped green spaces, Forest Home Cemetery is a great place for a summer stroll – even without the layer of history on top. Maps available at the cemetery office and a page on its website point you to dozens of its distinguished departed denizens. Here are a few to pique your interest:
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George H. Walker
1811-1866 | SECTION 31, BLOCK 31, LOT 3
The most colorful and rotund of Milwaukee’s three founding fathers settled at the tip of what’s now Walker’s Point in 1834 and orchestrated the filling of swamps and development that give the area its shape today. He was twice elected the unified city’s mayor.
Ardie Clark Halyard
1896-1989 | CHAPEL GARDENS BUILDING 2
She developed (with her husband, Wilbur) the Halyard Park neighborhood and co-founded Columbia Savings and Loan, Wisconsin’s first Black-owned S&L. She’s also the first woman to lead the Milwaukee chapter of the NAACP.
Joseph Schlitz
1831-1875 | SECTION 36, LOT 1
The city’s most prominent beer barons are memorialized at Forest Home, including the namesake of the (recently dearly departed) “beer that made Milwaukee famous.” But he’s not actually buried here. Schlitz died in a shipwreck off the coast of Cornwall, and his body was never found.
