Hello! I'm new. I grew up in Tinley Park and I've been to Bachelor's Grove many times over the years. Most of the times I've been there nothing unusual has happened. BUT! I have 3 stories from 3 different visits that are really strange. I hope it's ok to post stories without pics.
OK, let me start by saying that I was no angel in high school and my friends and I would ditch school at TPHS and go to Bachelor's with our guitars and wine we stole from our parents, etc. Nothing happened probably the first 10 times I was there, so the mystique had completely worn off when these incidents happened.
Story #1. It was about 1995. I was 16. Some friends and I were there screwing around (always harmless, no littering or vandalism) I had heard stories about the cemetary, but I had heard no stories about the pond at this point. I had already been to the cemetary several times and just wasn't scared at all anymore. I had never gone down to the pond so I strolled over by myself while my friends were jamming. I walked up to the pond and felt dizzy and nauseous, prickly and shiverry. I felt like something was under the water and was very angry and ready to come at me. I vowed never to go down to the pond again. Once I re-entered the cemetary itself I felt much better. I didn't tell anyone about what had happened.
Story #2. It was my senior year. 1996. My best friend Melissa and I were total nature hippy chicks. We used to go to different forest preserves around Tinley and walk the trails and stuff. We decided to explore some of Rubio woods. I had been to Bachelor's Grove many times but never walked the woods there, so off we went. We passed the cemetary and walked down to the stream, hit a dead end and turned back. We found a path heading South? across from the entrance to the cemetary. We were walking along the path, picking wildflowers and singing Grateful Dead. All of a sudden, there was no path. We were in the thick brush of the woods and neither one of us knew how we lost the path. Figuring we just got lost, we turned around and made our way back through the brush in the direction we thought we had come from. We were both in sandals and long skirts. The brush and brambles were thick and scratching our legs. We went on like this for prob 20 minutes. It was awful! All of a sudden I almost fell in an OLD well! I freaked! Closed to the well we found some foundation stones of a house! It was in THE THICK of the woods. Totally grown over. We were scared and shocked! We got out of there fast and started barreling through the brush for about another 20 minutes or more when we finally found our way out we were in a soccer field. I no longer remember how we got back to my car parked back at the entrance. We were so scared we probably walked all the way back around! I've never been back to try and search for it again, must have just been dumb luck!
Story #3- I just joined this site today because my interest was just renewed this weekend. I was just visiting with my younger sister over the weekend. I am now 29 and she is 26. We were driving by Bachelor's Grove when I mentioned it to her. She said she had never been there. I hadn't been there in years, so I said, "oh it's beautiful and peaceful, you gotta see it! There are legends about the place!" She agreed and we walked onto the path leading to the graveyard. The first thing that was strange was a path leading off to the south close to the entrance to the path that I don't remember being there when I was in highschool, but I could be wrong. The SECOND thing was creepy! It was thunderstorming all weekend so everything was wet and muddy, it had even rained the night before. We were there at 10am. Someone or something had stuck a popcan on a tree branch hanging onto the path. A square yellow piece of paper was attached to the can facing us as we walked down the path. On the paper was a very detailed and artistically talented drawing of a bald old man with glasses, with ripples surrounding him. He looked foreboding. The paper was dry and looked new. We both just couldn't shake the feeling we were being watched after that (go figure!) The graveyard was overgrown and serene. By the infants grave were tons of stuffed animals that were all wet and muddy from the rain. 2 of the stuffed animals looked brand new, were not wet or anything! Even though it had rained the night before and we were there in the morning! On a flat stone closeby were 2 lighters and a pen that also looked new. In fact the pen should've rolled off the stone in the rain and wind...but it hadn't! We hurried home and told our stepdad. We asked him if he had ever been there and what stories he had heard about the place. What he told us next blew us away. He said that back in the early 90's a guy he worked with took him there to meet a man who lived in the woods! His work friend knew the guy and where exactly in the woods he lived. My stepdad said he was very strange and lived in a camoflaged tee-pee like construction in the middle of the woods and that he had lived there for years and was probably still there! He said no one could ever find his tee-pee because it was so cleverly hidden and that he was a survivalist! No wonder we felt we were being watched!!!!!!!!