Somehow, in all the times I’ve visited my family’s farm in Central Illinois, I never noticed to the east that there is a hill that slowly rises up from the prairie, and on those heights there is a cemetery surrounded by trees.

Mount Zion Cemetery is so remote that Google Maps doesn’t know it’s there, but it is very old.

But it is still an active cemetery, with several new graves with freshly dug earth.

It’s a little hard to see, but the farm field rows start to slowly rise up to the elevated land where the cemetery sits.

Most likely the land was set aside because of its prominent location but also because it was not practical to farm.