Read by Kelly Isaak, Phyllis Hanke, Gloria Dettleff and Dorothy Falk
This listing is considered to be current as of 15 Aug 2011. Information supplemented by Trinity Church Records
Trinity Lutheran Cemetery is less than a mile north of the IL Route 161 and Broadway Street junction in Hoffman, Lake Township, Clinton County, Illinois. The church is on the right, the school and cemetery are to the left. Check Cemetery Map for further location information.
The History of the church is at Trinity Lutheran Church Website (external link). The congregation was first formed in 1846, the cemetery's oldest remaining stone is 1874. As with all old cemeteries, wooden crosses were probably used to mark the earlier burials, and they have since returned to dust. There are many unmarked/unknown graves.
The Church generously allowed us to supplement our cemetery stone reading with information from the Church's Burial ledgers. Gloria translated those from German and added the additional information to the cemetery listing, putting the additional information in [square brackets]. If the name was previously completely unknown, the entire entry was marked with + after the name.
We were also given a copy of Elaine Boehne-McCall's booklet of Deaths and Burials which she transcribed from the church's ledger Book I (1875 - 1915). Neither the ledgers nor the booklet are specific about where some of the people were buried. They might be in this cemetery with no stone or they might be buried elsewhere. We retained all names since all clues are interesting and helpful. The people with no burial location were marked with # after their names.
We are working on Plat maps to assist finding the graves. Photos of the stones are online in our Trinity Lutheran Cemetery Photo Gallery.
For the purposes of our reading, we (not the Church) labeled the sections as:
C - Church - Data was obtained from the Church's Burial records, with no stones to pin point the burial location.
NE - Northeast - The oldest graves, mostly buried chronologically plus some recent burials.
SE - Southeast - The next oldest group of stones.
SW - Southwest - Current burials are being made here. Most lots are sold.
NW - Northwest - Current burials are being made here.
O - Other cemeteries - Known burial locations for members of this church.
U - Unknown burial location for members of this church.
We (not the Church) numbered the stones beginning in the left-hand corner of each section as you face the stones - just for walking purposes. Lot numbers will be on the plat maps.
Abbreviations used in this listing are:
* Stone is written in German.
S/w means they share their tombstone with someone else.
GHS - Government head stone for a veteran
PHS - Privately purchased head stone for a veteran
[ ] square brackets contain additional information from church records
Please see our Privacy Statement. If you'd like to correct/clarify information here, contact Gloria or Dorothy. If you'd like to supplement what is here, please contact us