Mount Olivet Cemetery

Though the Polish community built their own church at SS. Peter and Paul rather than continue to worship in German at Immaculate Conception, that sense of separateness did not extend to where they buried their dead. Initially they used Calvary Cemetery and when that closed, they buried at Mt. Olivet.

Since nearly all of the Polish community in St. Joseph was Catholic, they tended to bury their dead at Mt. Olivet, the Catholic cemetery. A walk through the well-kept grounds will take you past the family names that appear in association with other sites on this tour. John Marek, the founder of Marek’s Deli is here; the Goosetown families of Borkowski and Dubowsky are well represented, and the packing house employee John Klekot who died in 1962 is buried next to his infant son, John Jr., who died more than 50 years earlier. Frank Wieczorek, one of the 19 victims of the 1930 explosion at the Armour Packing House is also buried here.

“John M. Marek,” St. Joseph News Press, Aug. 6, 1966; “Mrs. Anna Borkowski, 57 Years Old, Dies in Hospital,” St. Joseph News Press, Feb. 21, 1938; “SS. Peter and Paul’s (Polish),” Catholic Tribune, March 25, 1916; “Klekot Funeral,” St. Joseph Gazette, June 27, 1962; “Wieczorek,” St. Joseph Gazette, May 11, 1930.