Evangelo T. Kasebes. That’s his name. He was born February 12, 1957. The angels came for him on August 9, 1960. He was two-and-a-half years old. At least that’s what his tombstone at Northshore Garden of Memories in North Chicago says. A newspaper article I found says Evangelo was four years old.
I didn’t just stumble upon this. For the last fourteen years, my husband and I take a drive two or three times a year to Northshore Garden of Memories to visit the grave of my husbands brother, Constantine (Butchy). Butchy passed away when he was four years old of leukemia.
From the get-go my husband told me about Evangelo who was laid to rest in close proximity to Butchy. My late father-in-law, Pete, used to tend to both graves while visiting Butchy. Pete would trim the grass, pull the weeds, and if he brought flowers for Butchy, Evangelo got some too.
Why? Because Evangelo came to this country by himself, sponsored by the Waukegan Red Cross, for a life-saving heart surgery that proved fatal. He came from Myrtia, Greece which is located on the island of Crete. His parents did not come with him.
Can you even begin to imagine sending your child to another country for an operation and not going along? Then the surgery is not a success and probably due to lack of funds, his body could not be sent home but must be laid to rest in a foreign country with nobody to watch over him and his grave. That’s where Pete entered the picture.
We knew why Pete tended the grave site. Because that’s the kind of guy Pete was. Until today we did not know how Pete became aware of this situation and took it upon himself to take care of Evangelo’s grave. In the article I found that was published in a Pennsylvania newspaper in August of 1960, it states that Evangelo was the grand-nephew of Anthony C. of North Chicago. Turns out that Anthony was the father of my husband’s uncle’s wife.
For all these years that we’ve been going to the cemetery, we always make a point of trimming and cleaning Butchy’s grave and then we take a few steps to tend to Evangelo’s grave. Each time it just breaks my heart that the mom of The Little Greek Boy never got to say goodbye or hold him one last time. The sleepless nights she must have had when she turned him over to strangers to send to a foreign country to save her sons life…only to never see him again.
For many years I’ve had a fascination with cemeteries and walk through them as often as I can. There is a wealth of information and sometimes a tombstone will bear the picture of the deceased…an opportunity to put a face with their tombstone story. Imagine having the opportunity to talk to someone who died 100 years ago and hear their story…and to answer your questions…and to tell them what life is like today (without mentioning politics or Covid). That would be a dream come true for me.
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