Welcome to Westville Lithuanian Cemetery, a 6 acre, 95 year-old-cemetery, founded in 1909 for people of all religions and nationalities. Entrance is about 1 mile S of Westville, IL, on Route 1. Turn left on Clingan Lane. The cemetery is on the left about 1/4 mile.

The Westville community is indebted to the past and present services of local community members who are committed to maintain the grounds, volunteer to upkeep the records, and create ways to preserve the cemetery. It is self-supported through donations and costs of the plots.

We wish to thank Robert Sandlin for painstakingly blackening weathered-tombstone impressions so that fading inscriptions would again become visible and also systematically recording each tombstone inscription in a notebook. We are also honored to have two Lithuanian translators transcribe Lithuanian headstone inscriptions: John Deltuva Jr., a life-long Westville resident and Eigius Sintkus, a Lithuanian correspondent. And last, but not least, we thank Stan Jordan. His daily supervision and maintenance deserves special recognition, and we are grateful for his interest, guidance and support of this project.

In as much as we have tried to record accurate inscription data, please remember that the forces of nature cause many inscription changes, and we are regrettably unable to record unmarked gravesites. The records presented here are solely taken from headstone inscriptions. Also, there may be dissimilarities when compared to ledger recordings and, unfortunately, there are unmarked graves.

Points of Interest:
- A heart-shaped burial plot rests in the center of the cemetery. The Rev. Kunigas Pranas Mikaulaskas, a Lithuanian priest, was buried there in 1933. Father Frank, as he was known, oversaw the independent Catholic congregation of Holy Cross Church, whose parishioners had broken away for the Roman Catholic Ss. Peter and Paul Church. The inscription on his tombstone describes the unsettling nature of his departure upon death within the church:

Was born 24 December 1889
Have left this world in 6 September 1933
Psalm number 41: my enemies were speaking angrily about me: when he will die, his name will be forgotten?

An original, preserved Lithuanian church bell sets near Father Frank's burial plot. The inscription below the bell reads:
Lietuviu KATALIKU SHVENTO KRYZHIAUS BAZHNYCHIA
Lithuanian SAINT CROSS CATHOLIC CHURCH

- The headstone inscriptions do not fully reflect a person's personal or familial essence of the people whose hearts and lives of people who loved, labored and did the best they could within the era of their lives.

(NOTE: Only those listings that have an associated photo will have a 4-digit photo ID number.
Click on the number to view the digital photo of the stone.)

If you have a database or information that you would like to put into our database, that pertains to Lithuanian genealogy, please contact us at webmaster@lithuaniangenealogy.org