Easy Chair Grave

Geneva, Illinois

The tombstone of Loie and Hal Naylor is a full-size easy chair, carved out of what appears to be limestone. It stands on slope in Oak Hill Cemetery and faces west, giving whoever sits in it a view toward the Fox River. Inscribed into the upper part of the chair, above the Naylors' names, is one word: "Pals."

Loie and Hal were both officers at the St. Charles School for Boys. Loie died in 1926, and Hal died in 1952. That appears to be when the chair was likely carved.

The chair stands atop a low pedestal of black granite with a step cut into it, clearly inviting anyone who visits to climb and sit. Countless people have done so and been photographed in the chair; the grave is one of the best-known and most visited in Chicago's suburbs. But despite decades of posthumous research, no one can seem to figure out why the Naylors wanted people to sit on their graves.