MACHESNEY PARK, Ill. (WTVO) — The answer to our “Ask Eric” question this week is a history lesson.

Joel G. says he’s noticed a historical marker on Ralston Road in Machesney Park, just west of Ralston Elementary, but he’s never seen anything else “historical.”

Joel, mystery solved!

You have to really be looking for that sign. It’s pretty weathered and faded. It looks like a big urn.

The inscription says “Rockford Memorial Park…This memorial stands as a tribute to those persons buried here in the year of our Lord 1930 to 1933.”

The property used to be a cemetery. The owners went bankrupt. Bodies buried there were re-interred someplace else.

In the early 1950s, Lee Daughenbaugh bought the property. When he started to dig the foundation for the house, he realized not all of the remains were removed.

There was no way to identify who was still there. The graves had no markers. So Lee put the house further back on the property.

Lee’s daughter says the organization “Daughters of the American Revolution” was involved in putting up the monument.

It serves to remember those still on the property who at one time, included a colonel from the Civil War.