JFK in a Graveyard, But Not His Grave
Taylorville, Illinois
A statue of President Kennedy with squinty eyes, eight feet tall, carved from white Italian Carrara marble, stands atop a pedestal surrounded by graves in Oak Hill Cemetery. Although the pedestal is engraved with JFK's name and lifespan, he is not buried here; his grave is 800 miles away in Virginia. The origins of the statue are obscure, but it was commissioned only a month after JFK's assassination, and Robert Kennedy supposedly supplied a reference photo of his brother's face to be used by the Italian stone-carvers. The statue proved to be a good deal for the cemetery, as all the plots surrounding the statue were subsequently sold out.