Two brothers Arthur Milo Root and Charles Frank Root buried in the Main Street Cemetery now have a stone to mark their graves. The brothers were grandsons of Abigail Stearns Root and Martin Root buried here along with son Amos and 3 more grandchildren Emma, Alma and Leonard. All were remembered on the Stearns obelisk, except Arthur and Charles, probably because they were still alive when the stone was place in the cemetery. Arthur and Charles are the only ones to be buried twice in the Main Street Cemetery how and why that happened is part of their story.
Arthur born in 1859 and Charles in 1867 were the sons of Elijah and Ann Jeanette Kenyon Root. They grew up on the Root farm in Lisle. Arthur married Clara Keil when he was 26 years old and they had 3 children Clara, Herman and George. Son Herman was a veteran of WW1 the last Downers Grove soldier to return after the war in 1919. Arthur and Clare divorced in 1895 and she remarried. We don’t have the exact date of Arthur’s death but it may have been before 1900. Brother Charles lived in the farm of his parents in Lisle. There is no record that he ever married and he may have died sometime after 1880.
Even though we don’t have their dates of death, we do know they are buried here because their graves were uncovered when their unmarked graves were found during construction on Main Street in 2000. This discovery led to an extensive study of the remains found and cemetery records by the State of Illinois. The determined that were the sons of Elijah and Ann Jeanette Kenyon Root. In the summer of 2000 with an appropriate ceremony the village reburied the Root brothers in the cemetery. Their grave left of the monument for their other family members was left unmarked and not found again until a ground penetrating radar study of the cemetery was done in 2021 that showed the location.
The story of the Root brothers being buried twice is an interesting piece to the history of this cemetery. Having their graves now marked in 2023, we continue to respect and remember those buried in the Main Street Cemetery.
