The Forest Home Cemetery in Forest Park, Illinois, is divided into two sections by the Des Plaines River.  Emma Goldman’s gravestone, the Druid Monument, the Haymarket Martyr’s Monument among others are in the main section of the cemetery.  The smaller section of the cemetery just across the Des Plaines River has fewer gravestones and mausoleums.  But one unmarked and plain mausoleum holds within its walls a famous broadcaster and his wife, “Angel”.

He got his start in life in Tulsa, Oklahoma—the son of a police officer who was killed in a robbery gone wrong. As a young boy, he was fascinated with radios and in his spare time made radio receivers.  As is often the case, a big influence on his life was a teacher who remarked that he had a certain timbre in his voice that would be terrific for radio. 

Radio at the time was a medium that had taken off and most families listened to the radio for their news and entertainment.  So, in 1933, the teenaged boy got a job cleaning the local radio station in Tulsa.  It turned out to be his big break in radio as he was eventually given the chance to read commercials and news on KVOO Radio.  While attending the University of Tulsa, he continued to work as an announcer at the station and was promoted to program director, which led to other positions in other markets—Oklahoma City, Salina, Kansas, and St. Louis, Missouri.  It was in St. Louis in 1940, while working for KXOK Radio that he met and married Lynne Cooper—“Angel”—a school teacher who later became his producer and partner in the radio business.

During World War II, he continued his radio career after a brief stint in the armed forces.  In 1951, he began airing segments for which he became famous.  Eventually these segments became syndicated, and his program reached a staggering 24 million people a week and was broadcast on 1,200 radio stations.

His unique way of describing a story and his staccato-style delivery gained him fame and multitudes of recognition and many industry awards including induction into the National Association of Broadcasters National Radio Hall of Fame, induction into The Oklahoma Hall of Fame, and the prestigious Paul White Award of the Radio and Television Digital News Association. He even received America’s highest civilian award—the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

The son of Harry Harrison Aurandt and Anna Dagmar Christensen Aurandt, became nationally known for his radio program which aired from 1951 until 2008, his unique delivery, his staccato-style, and such catch phrases as “Hello Americans, this is Paul Harvey, stand by for news!”  That famous broadcaster in the unmarked mausoleum is none other than Paul Harvey—“Now you know the rest of the story!”

Paul Harvey Aurandt

September 4, 1918 – February 28, 2009

Lynne “Angel” Harvey

October 4, 1913 – May 3, 2008