Baby Martha Faul died at the age of 8 months in 1856, the year Samuel Curtiss and Henry Carpenter decided to open this land for a cemetery. Martha Faul was the first person to be buried in Main Street Cemetery. Her siblings Leah and Louis are also buried in Main Street Cemetery. They parents were Henry and Eva Wolff Faul, who were the the parents of ten children.
Henry, a stonemason, was born in Germany and came to America when he was 14 years old. He met his wife Eva in New York and they married in 1839. By 1842 they traveled to Illinois and settled on land near Maple Avenue and Cass being one of the first families in present day Westmont. All the family helped on the farm. Farming was not always healthy for the children. Many were bothered by the prairie air and suffered from diseases related to it. Also, babies often became ill and died for many reasons. That is what happened to daughter Martha. Henry Faul was more than just a farmer as he served on the school board and was active in the Congregational Church. Sadly, they would lose another child, Leah who died in 1868. Buried next to her sister Martha, Leah was just 18 when she died also of an unknown illness. After the loss of these two daughters the family moved from the farm to a home at Washington and Curtiss Street. The home stood until around 1930 when it was removed to make way for the Downers Grove Post Office. The two Faul sisters are the only ones with older headstones. A headstone for brother Louis (1847-1863) was placed nearby in 2020. Their parents are buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Downers Grove Township west of downtown Downers Grove.
