Arlington Memorial Park & Pet Cemetery Rockford

06/25/2026

The parking lot is getting paved today! Access to Monument Garden, Cremation Garden, and the office will be easier once it's complete.

06/24/2026

A reminder: The staff of Arlington Memorial Park Cemetery will be off on Friday, July 3, 2026, since the Fourth of July is one of their only holidays. While the office will be closed, the cemetery grounds will be open dawn until dusk, as usual. The office will re-open Monday, July 6th at 8:00am.

06/23/2026

This is Gustaf Walter Ruckman, a World War I Navy veteran buried in our cemetery. Mr. Ruckman joined US Naval Reserve and was stationed at the Boston Naval Yard. During his time serving, he was re-assigned to active duty aboard a Submarine Chaser, earning a Victory Medal and the right to have a VA marker. Mr. Ruckman passed away at the age of 39, a few months after the death of his only child. His grave was unmarked since his death. We are honored to have gotten him his long overdue marker.

06/10/2026

Just a reminder that going forward, shepherd hooks must be pulled or have decorations on them by October 31st. Empty ones will be pulled on November 1st. You can bring them back in the Spring after Spring Cleanup on April 1st. If you have decorated over the winter, be sure to clear anything you want to keep by March 31st, EVEN Easter items. April 1st is clean up and EVERYTHING on the gravesite and hooks will be removed, no exceptions. This applies to the main cemetery and the pet cemetery. Thank you. Decorating guidelines are available from the office, are on both cemeteries' websites and posted on the window next to the office door.

06/08/2026

We have a Little Free Library outside the entrance to the cemetery. It's unknown if any of our resident or passing wildlife make use of it. We know people certainly do.

🦝🦝

Credit: Groundhog Hill

06/03/2026

Update on the parking lot work. They have cleared off the paving in the circular area. Now, it needs to sit and cure for a while. In a few weeks the fresh paving will be laid down, and we'll be getting the striping done for the parking spaces.

06/02/2026

We want to take a moment to acknowledge the pets we assisted in May after they crossed the Rainbow Bridge. Sam, Nene, Harlee, Mac, Farah, The Puppies, Jerry, Ricky, Stumpy, Rogue, Bobby Ray, K Lee, Nix, Kole, Digger, Yuki, Kipper, Mr. Hank, and Ava.

05/29/2026

The work has begun.

05/27/2026

Do you have a family member buried at our cemetery who is a veteran with an unmarked grave? If so, we can advise and assist you in gathering the paperwork needed and the forms needed to submit a request for a marker. If you don’t have the DD-214 (discharge document), we can assist you with filing the form requesting it. Once the marker is approved and sent out, there is a setting fee of $290, because the VA doesn’t cover setting markers in a non-national cemetery. The marker is free. Once the setting is completed, we send a copy of the invoice and a form filled out with your information and social security number to the state of Illinois, and they remit directly to you a partial reimbursement for the setting fee.

We have numerous veterans who are unmarked. We have limited resources since we are not a corporate cemetery. More importantly, these veterans are years, even decades away from the cemetery being allowed to request service records and DD-214s, let alone make the case to the VA that there is no family available to make the request for a marker. Also, depending on the state of death there are restrictions on when or if non-family can request a research/genealogical copy of a death certificate. While there are some World War II era veterans, most of our unmarked veterans served in the years and/or conflicts after that time.

We have over 1700 veterans from the Civil War to the present day buried in our cemetery. Over 50 of those veterans have no grave marker. We were honored to assist the group requesting a grave marker for our only Civil War veteran, Samuel H Bogenrief. Since then, we identified three World War I veterans with no marker and no known family and are working on those. We’ve successfully gotten Frank F Johnson his marker, we will be announcing a new recipient soon, and we are working on the third person. However, we can’t handle all the unmarked veterans by ourselves. We have limited resources since we are not a corporate cemetery. We are 501c13, non-profit association. Also, despite the name Arlington, like the other Arlington Cemeteries throughout the US, we have no affiliation with Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. We only share the name.

05/22/2026

We have close to twenty military members who died during active service from World War II to the present buried here, they are part of the over 1700 veterans from the Civil War to the present at our cemetery.

Remember, the cemetery grounds will be open from dawn until dusk on Memorial Day. Just the office will be closed and will reopen Tuesday at our regular time.