DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Not long after the Civil War, a man named Edward Ezell, Sr. and his wife Frankie — she was a Howard before she married — gave about two acres of their land for a cemetery. Edward would live until 1903, and whatever else he left behind, that gift of ground was something that would outlast a great deal more than him.
The cemetery grew over time, enlarged under the direction of the Antioch Cemetery Association, and by 1905 the folks of the Luna community had taken to gathering here once a year for a memorial service. Now Luna, at its peak, was a real going concern — two hundred and fifty people, a church, a grist mill, a school, a blacksmith shop, a general store. The kind of place that felt like it had a future.
Then came 1906, and the railroad made its decision. It bypassed Luna. Just... went another way.
And when a railroad bypasses a settlement in those days, well, the story more or less writes itself. The community began to decline. The church, the mill, the school, the shops — all of it faded.
Of everything that once made Luna a place on the map, only one thing remains standing today: that pioneer burial ground, the very land Edward and Frankie Ezell gave before any of it rose up, and long before any of it fell.
What the marker says
Shortly after the Civil War, Edward Ezell, Sr. (d. 1903) and his wife, Frankie (Howard), gave about two acres for this cemetery. It was later enlarged under the direction of the Antioch Cemetery Association. In 1905, residents of the Luna community began holding an annual memorial service here. The community, with a population of 250, was once the site of a church, grist mill, school, blacksmith shop, and general store, but in 1906 the railroad bypassed Luna, and the settlement began to decline. The pioneer burial ground is all that remains.