Spirit of Radio

Another reason I enjoy wandering through cemeteries taking pictures (besides the peace of them and the great statuary you can photograph) is the unexpected history that you often encounter.

To the right is a picture of “The Spirit of Radio” a statue on the Grunow monument in Forest Home cemetery outside Chicago (see this post for some words about the Martyrs’ monument in the same cemetery). The statue caught my eye and reading the caption with the name intrigued me even more. On the other side of the mausoleum is the statue below: “The Spirit of Commerce.”

Why would these classical looking statues with classical symbolic elements (the palm leaf and shield held by “Radio” and the winged sandals, helmet and caduceus of “Commerce”) be in a cemetery? After very briefly looking into the name of Grunow, I found out William C. Grunow (1893 – 1951) was co-owner of the Grigsby-Grunow (Majestic) radio company in the 1930’s. Makes sense, but unless you were an avid collector of old radios you probably wouldn’t have made the connection between the man’s name and a statue of “The Spirit of Radio” on his tomb.