Nearly forgotten on the outskirts of Granite City, Illinois is the Haunted Odd Fellows Cemetery.  For decades this cemetery laid in ruin, with many of its beautiful monuments toppled and overgrown.  My first visit to the Odd Fellows Cemetery was over ten years ago.  Then the area was so overgrown that the only way we could find the cemetery was by the wrought iron arch that marks the entrance.   Over the past few years a concerted effort has been made to clear the overgrowth and maintain the cemetery, but unfortunately, many of the beautiful monuments still lay toppled and broken.   During my last visit, I was shocked to see that many of the smaller headstones were cast behind a tree, meaning that many of the graves will be forever left unmarked.   

     The graveyard is supposedly haunted by the spirit of Lucinda Irish; her grave is the first monument you see as you approach the cemetery.   In the late 1940’s a subdivision was going to be built in the area.  The old dirt road that leads to the cemetery was paved over with asphalt.  The builders planned to build houses on one side of the cemetery and relocated the headstones, but not the graves.  The wrought iron arch was moved from its original entry point where the old dirt road stopped to its current place next to the Irish Family monument.  Once the cemetery was desecrated, plans for the new subdivision fell through, and the houses were never built.  The desecration of her family’s graves was said to have awakened the spirit of Lucinda Irish.  Lucinda, now she roams the cemetery at night screaming at anyone who dares to enter.  Its location made it easy for grave robbers to vandalize the cemetery.   Remnants of the abandoned asphalt road can still be seen, but Mother Nature is slowly reclaiming it.

    Since the cemetery is now being maintained, sightings of Lucinda Irish have started to dissipate.  Maybe her spirit agrees with the recent attempts to clean up the cemetery, or maybe her spirit just grows weary of the failed attempts to protect her family’s final resting place.