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Purcell,  William Gray

Architect.
Born 1880, Wilmette, Illinois; died April 11, 1965, Pasadena, California.
Buried in Forest Park.

Purcell was a nationally known architect who grew up in Oak Park. He studied at the Cornell School of Architecture and graduated in 1903. He worked for Louis Sullivan before starting a private practice in 1906. Three years later, he formed a partnership with George Elmslie.

Purcell was an early proponent of creating a new American architecture, and he shunned the popular Tudor, Romanesque, and Classical Revival styles of the period. Purcell's firm became one of the most productive of the Prairie School practitioners. Purcell believed that buildings should reflect the lives of the people who inhabited them. The function of a building, together with its site, landscaping, materials, and decoration, should make a unified whole. His firm was particularly known for its many beautifully ornamented banks designed for small towns across the nation. Purcell and Elmslie remained partners until 1922. After the firm dissolved, Purcell continued in private practice and became involved with low-cost and speculative housing. After a serious illness, he retired to southern California and devoted his time to writing.

Purcell had been raised by his grandfather, William Cunningham Gray, a neighbor of Frank Lloyd Wright. Gray, who is buried on the other side of this monument, was a businessman who, later in his life, became absorbed with spiritual matters. The Interior was a religious magazine which he edited.

Take note of the "autographed" stones on the gravesites. The dates shown are the years of birth and death; the central date is the marriage year. The monument was designed by Purcell while a student at Cornell.