DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll give it to you straight. Now, every graveyard has a story, and the ones worth tellin' usually start with a name chiseled in stone older than anything else around it. Out here at Birdville Cemetery, that name belongs to Wiley Wilda Potts.
Born December 20, 1822. Gone December 15, 1852 — just five days shy of turning thirty years old. That's the oldest marked grave in this whole pioneer community, and it sets the clock for everything that follows.
The land itself — one acre of it — was part of the George Akers Grant. And before 1860, somebody made sure it was legally set aside for burial purposes. Not informally, not by custom alone — legally.
Somebody looked ahead and said: this ground needs to be held. More land came later by donation, and by 1910 the site had grown to three and a quarter acres, give or take — three point two seven, to be precise about it. Then in 1917, the Birdville Cemetery Association organized under a fifty-year charter.
Fifty years. You run out that clock and you land right back at 1967 — which is exactly when they rechartered. The association kept its word to the place, and the place kept its word right back.
By 1965, there were five hundred and fifty-two known graves recorded here. Known. That word does a quiet kind of work, doesn't it.
And scattered among those graves are family plots where four generations rest side by side in the same piece of earth — great-grandparents and grandchildren, names repeating themselves like echoes. The site now covers seven acres and is still used for burials. Started with one acre and a single marked grave.
Now it holds seven acres, more than five centuries of known souls, and families still comin' home to the same plot of ground their people claimed generations back. Wiley Wilda Potts has been the oldest name here for over a hundred and seventy years. Something tells me that's not changin' anytime soon.
What the marker says
The oldest marked grave in this pioneer community cemetery is that of Wiley Wilda Potts (Dec. 20, 1822 - Dec. 15, 1852). The one-acre tract, then part of the George Akers Grant, was legally set aside for burial purposes before 1860. More land was later donated, and by 1910 the site included 3.27 acres. Birdville Cemetery Association, organized under a 50-year charter in 1917, was rechartered in 1967. The cemetery contained 552 known graves in 1965. Several families have four generations buried here in the same plot. The site now encompasses seven acres and is still used for burials. (1975)