Mount Carmel Cemetery

Mount Carmel Cemetery is a burial ground west of Chicago. It appears as the setting for Margaret Campbell’s father’s funeral and as the family burial place of her father’s relatives. The cemetery brings together private grief and the longer history of the city around it.

Setting and Associations

Among the cemetery’s rows are the graves of figures from Chicago’s criminal past, including notorious gangsters and their families. Margaret sets these well-known names against her father’s less distinguished family background: his relatives were of Scots and Irish origin, while her mother’s family was German. The cemetery’s associations therefore range from public notoriety to the personal histories of ordinary families.

Margaret Campbell’s Father’s Burial

Margaret attends her father’s burial with a small gathering of relatives, friends, a university representative, and some of his former students. Her mother places earth on the coffin, and Margaret follows by letting a handful fall into the grave. The funeral takes place in winter, amid the first snow, while Margaret struggles with the fact of her father’s death and the ritual of burial.

Family Memory and Significance

Margaret notes that her father’s family had all been buried at Mount Carmel. At the graveside, that continuity offers her a connection to her father: she takes comfort in having inherited some of his features, including the possibility of his Celtic heritage. The cemetery thus serves not only as the location of his funeral but as a point of contact between family history, inheritance, and Margaret’s uncertain sense of where her own future belongs.