Entry tags:

cemetery, critters

Holy Trinity & Land Cemeteries
We photographed Holy Trinity and Land Cemeteries in north central Williamson county this weekend.

Holy Trinity Cemetery appears to have been founded in 1891 and is located at 30°46'16.5 N 097°35'08.8 W behind the Holy Trinity Catholic Church near Corn Hill. You can see the church for several miles because it is on a relative high point. We took 894 pictures and once M. completes the transcription I'll plug in how many marked graves there are. Many of the markers in this cemetery have text and dates written in Czech. All the newer stones are laid out on a grid but the older section is a bit less organized and runs at a slight angle to the main grid. There are a number of graves, particularly of children, that only have a cross. I always find it sad to see graves that do not tell the name of the person -- it is like their lives didn't matter to anyone. The people in this community clearly had pride in the rest of their deceased as the markers are well maintained (only a handful have come off their bases) and there are quite a few large pillars with decorations on top. Some markers have rose bushes growing and there is a line of larger bushes up the middle with grass around their roots. Otherwise, this cemetery seems to have been set in a stony area as almost none of the markers have grass -- which makes it get pretty hot pretty quick. There is a donkey in the field south of the cemetery and now and then you can hear him bray. One time while we were there a police car went by with its siren on and the donkey brayed at the sound like dogs in the city do. I never knew that donkeys would bray in sympathy like that. There are several small Texas oaks along the edges of the cemetery where one can park a car and get some shade.

The donkey

Land Cemetery is at 30°49'43.2 N 097°37'49.6 W west of Jarrell. The cemetery is out on a hill surrounded by pastures though you can see many homes not far away to the east. I imagine that in another 20 years or so this cemetery will be surrounded by homesteads. This cemetery has a newish wood beam and tin roofed structure that is large enough to park a car under -- we did. The roofed structure is a life saver on a hot day because there are no other shaded areas in this cemetery. We took 345 pictures of the markers in this cemetery. Many of the markers had been damaged (broken in half or worse) and at least some of the damage appears to have been caused by the mower. We found the remains of two aluminum funeral home markers that looked like they had been smashed by a lawnmower blade -- it is unlikely that these markers will still be around in 10 years. There is also a pair of markers that used to have a surrounding iron fence but the fence looks like a car smashed into it years ago and one of the pillars it was protecting was knocked over. It looked like someone had tried to repair a couple of the markers by using concrete to glue the top and bottom of a given marker together. Unfortunately, the concrete ran down in the letters in a couple of cases and so we won't be able to say who is buried there. Several of the oldest markers were hand scratched into flat limestone and are already quite weathered. Limestone is relatively easy to work by hand but doesn't hold up well against acidic rain that comes with air pollution. In another hundred years no one will know who was buried here. There are also quite a few graves marked only with field stones. This cemetery is topped with native texas grass and like the nearby fields is rather dry and hot at this time of year.

Note: The transcriptions are available online.