Oak Park in Cook County, Illinois — The American Midwest (Great Lakes)

Oak Park and River Forest High School World War I Memorial

Photographed by Sean Flynn, April 30, 2024

1. Oak Park and River Forest High School World War I Memorial Marker

Inscription. In Memoriam
1917 - 1918
To the boys of this school who gave their lives for freedom's cause.
Howard Watson Andrews, died in France, February 6, 1919. • Edwards Hall Berry, 1st Lieutenant, died en route to France, October 29, 1918. • Earl Brunson Bisbee, sergeant, killed in action, September 15, 1918. • Elmer Joy Bischoff, sergeant, killed in action, July 15, 1918. • Herbert Alfred Brock, sergeant, killed in action, November 11, 1917. • William F. Creighton, died in France, November 21, 1918. • Gunnar Dahl, killed in action, June 10, 1918. • John Knowlton Fisk, killed in action, October 30, 1912. • Lloyd Havens Ghislin, corporal, died in camp, August 31, 1917. • George Henry Grimm, died in service, December 27, 1919. • George Norris Hammond, 2nd lieutenant, died in camp, November 5, 1918. • Harry M. Helmick, died in France, January 10, 1919. • Harmon Porter Hook, died in service, December 15, 1918. • Charles Harvey Kellum, killed in action, June 6, 1918. • W. Kay Misenhimer, 2nd lieutenant, killed in airplane accident, September 6, 1918. • Arthur Douglass Mott, Jr. 2nd lieutenant, died in camp, December 7, 1918. • Joseph Francis Powers, died in naval service, August 10, 1918. • George Wilbur Sackett, captain, killed in action, October 15, 1918. • Harold Cordes Schreiner, 2nd lieutenant, died in France from wounds, October 13, 1918. George E. Shipley, 2nd lieutenant, killed in action, October 11, 1918. • Frank Austin Sturtevant, 2nd lieutenant, killed in action, October 9, 1918. • Harry Waite Vasey, corporal, killed in action, November 3, 1918. • Hazen A. Vaughan, corporal, killed in action, July 19, 1918. • Amos Bradford Whittle, 2nd lieutenant, killed in airplane accident, September 13, 1918.

Erected by OPRF High School Class of 1921.

Topics. This memorial is listed in these topic lists: Education

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• War, World I.

Location. 41° 53.418′ N, 87° 47.296′ W. Memorial is in Oak Park, Illinois, in Cook County. It is on North Scoville Avenue west of Ontario Street. The marker is in the main entrance vestibule of Oak Park and River Forest High School, to the left of the doorway. Touch for map. Memorial is at or near this postal address: 201 North Scoville Avenue, Oak Park IL 60302, United States of America. Touch for directions.

Regionally, this memorial is in Greater Chicago.

It is also in the American Midwest

and on the Great Lakes.

Globally, it is in North America,

the Western Hemisphere,

the Western World,

and the Anglosphere.

Historically, it finds itself in what was once the Viceroyalty of New France,

the territory of the Mississippian Culture,

and the Northwest Territory.

Other nearby markers. At least 8 other markers are within walking distance of this marker: Ernest Hemingway Remembrance Garden (a few steps from this marker); Dan Stratis (approx. 0.2 miles away); Oak Park Spanish-American War Memorial (approx. 0.2 miles away); Ridgeland School (approx. 0.3 miles away);

Oak Park and River Forest High School World War I Memorial image. Click for full size.

Photographed by Sean Flynn

2. Oak Park and River Forest High School World War I Memorial

The tablet can be seen through the left-most glass pane to the main entrance vestibule at OPRF High School.

Continental Divide (approx. 0.3 miles away); a different marker also named Continental Divide (approx. 0.3 miles away); Scoville Park's Designer: Jens Jensen (approx. 0.3 miles away); Scoville Park is the Heart of Oak Park (approx. 0.4 miles away). Touch for a list and map of all markers in Oak Park.

More about this memorial. From its erection around 1923 until 1967, the marker was likely posted on wall in a prominent location at or near the main entrance to OPRF High School. In 1967, when the school enclosed what had been a grassy area between the academic portion of the school and the athletic facilities, the plaque was moved next to the doorway of the 201 N. Scoville Ave. entrance. In 2022 the school completed a new enclosed vestibule for that entrance in 2022, and the plaque re-located inside the vestibule, to the left of the entrance, visible from outside the entrance.

Regarding Oak Park and River Forest High School World War I Memorial. Many of the men on this plaque are also included on other World War I memorials around Oak Park, including Peace Triumphant, the 1925 memorial to war dead in Oak Park and River Forest

Oak Park and River Forest High School image. Click for full size.

Photographed by Sean Flynn

3. Oak Park and River Forest High School

A view of the high school facing north. The main entrance, where the marker is located, is near the Ernest Hemingway Remembrance Garden, dedicated in honor of the high school's most famous alum. Hemingway graduated from OPRF in 1917, and then he spent six months writing for the Kansas City Star before joining the Red Cross and driving an ambulance in Italy, where he was seriously wounded.

that is the centerpiece of Scoville Park, about ⅓ of a mile east of this location (as the crow flies). Four men on this OPRF High School plaque, however, do not appear on Peace Triumphant: Earl Bisbee, Herbert Brock, George Grimm and W. Kay Misenhimer.

Earl Bisbee moved away from Oak Park after graduating from OPRF and was a resident of Los Angeles at the time of his enlistment. Born in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, Bisbee appears in the 1900 census in that city on the Mississippi River, about 230 miles west-northwest of here. Sometime after that he and his family moved to Oak Park or River Forest and he attended OPRF, from where he graduated from the school in 1909. He attended college in Ames, Iowa, at the agricultural college that today is Iowa State University, and graduated in 1913 with honors from the school's dairy program. A California war service card completed after the war outlines his post-college life after marrying Estelle Lind in 1912. Bisbee spent a year after college as an instructor at Ames and then moved in 1913 to California, where he worked in commercial dairy. The service card says that at the time of his

Elmer Bischoff (1895-1918) image. Click for full size.

Courtesy of Chicago History Museum, circa 1918

4. Elmer Bischoff (1895-1918)

Elmer Bischoff was born in Oak Park and died during battle in Belleau Wood while laying a telephone line. He is buried at the Oise-Aisne American Cemetery. In Oak Park, he is memorialized on the plaque at OPRF High School, on Peace Triumphant in Scoville Park, and on the Gold Star Men of the World War marker in Stevenson Park. His name appears as Bischoff on the OPRF plaque and Peace Triumphant, but as Bishoff on the Stevenson Park plaque and in this photo, which is part of the Chicago History Museum's archive of photographs of Chicago-area men who died in World War I.

enlistment he lived at 806 South Grandview Avenue in Los Angeles with his parents, Sherwin and Hattie Bisbee; that address exists today in Glendale, California, very close to the L.A. Zoo, but it's not certain whether it is the same one. In July 1917, Bisbee enlisted in the Marines and trained at Mare Island. He was a member of the 76th Company of the 6th Marines when he was killed by shrapnel on September 15, 1918, about two months before the war ended. He is buried in Saint Mihiel American Cemetery in France. He also has a memorial stone at Evergreen Cemetery in Prairie du Chien, where both of his parents and a sister Irene, who died in Chicago in 1914, are buried.

Herbert Brock was the first area man to die in World War I, fighting for the Canadian army, according to a 1919 article in the Oak Leaves newspaper about his brother, Victor Brock. He died in Ypres on November 11, 1917, where his body remains today. A 1917 enlistment card for a Jesse Herbert Brock, living on the near north side of Chicago, may be the same person, which could explain why he was not honored on Peace Triumphant.

Kay Misenhimer was born in Chicago and spent

Lloyd Havens Ghislin (1896-1917) image. Click for full size.

Courtesy of Chicago History Museum, November 1916

5. Lloyd Havens Ghislin (1896-1917)

Ghislin grew up at 407 N. Humphrey in Oak Park, the only child of Henry and Caroline Ghislin. According to the Chicago Tribune, Ghislin died suddenly at Fort Riley, Kansas, while on duty as a corporal in the quartermaster's division. He is buried at Graceland Cemetery in Chicago.

his childhood in Oak Park, where he attended Longfellow School and OPRF. After high school he and his family moved to Strongfield, Saskatchewan, Canada, where they had a grain farm. According to an article in the Oak Leaves, he enlisted in September 1917 and began training in Canada that December. In May 1918 he was made second lieutenant in the Royal Air Forces and went to England in June. He was killed in an airplane accident at the training field near Upavon, England, on September 6, 1918, a day after his 24th birthday, and was buried at the Upavon Cemetery. In addition to Brock and Misenhimer, another man on this plaque, John Fisk, also fought in the Canadian Army; however, Fisk is listed on Peace Triumphant.

George Grimm, a 1917 graduate of the high school, died of tuberculosis in late 1919. According to an article in Oak Leaves, Grimm lived a block north of the high school and received naval training at Northwestern University. He was about to join active service, the paper said, when he contracted tuberculosis. Instead of joining the military, he spent 10 months recuperating in New Mexico. He returned to Oak Park in September

Amos Whittle (1894-1918) image. Click for full size.

Courtesy of Chicago History Museum, circa 1917

6. Amos Whittle (1894-1918)

Amos Whittle enlisted in the air service in 1917, not long after he had graduated from the Kent College of Law. He died in September 1918 when the plane he was piloting crashed in the ocean near Coronado Beach not far from San Diego, killing him and his passenger. Whittle is buried in Forest Home Cemetery in Forest Park, Illinois. Newspaper reports at the time of his death said that his parents, Mr. and Mrs. George Whittle, lived at 812 South Kenilworth in Oak Park.

1919, and was planning to start a job at Sears, Roebuck & Co. when he relapsed. He died about three months later, on the day after Christmas 1919.

Credits. This page was last revised on February 5, 2026. It was originally submitted on May 13, 2024, by Sean P. Flynn of Oak Park, Illinois. This page has been viewed 444 times since then and 33 times this year. Photos: 1, 2, 3, 4. submitted on May 13, 2024, by Sean P. Flynn of Oak Park, Illinois. 5, 6. submitted on May 14, 2024, by Sean P. Flynn of Oak Park, Illinois.