DUANE
Duane's take
The marker here is what I go by — here's how I tell it. Way out in Falls County, there's a piece of ground that holds more Texas history than most folks ever stop to consider. It starts with one woman.
Amanda Ruble Taylor was born in the Republic of Texas itself, back in 1838 — before statehood, before all that came after. She moved to this area in 1855, and by all the evidence of the ground beneath your feet, she put down roots that held. In 1875, Amanda Taylor was buried on her family's land, and that burial is where this cemetery begins.
That's the seed of it. Her widower, the Reverend Isaac Taylor, took that ground and did something lasting with it — in 1879, he deeded the land to the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, so it could serve as a proper cemetery for the community. One man's grief, turned into something that would outlast him by generations.
Now, if you walk among these graves and you look close, you'll notice something that'll quiet you down real fast. There are a lot of small markers. A lot of them.
Infants. Children who barely got started. The marker doesn't dress it up, and neither will I — those tiny grave sites reveal the harsh realities of frontier life, plain and simple.
This land asked everything of the people who settled it, and sometimes it took more than folks had to give. But there are other graves here too. Veterans.
Men who served from the time of the Texas Revolution all the way through to World War II — that is a span of American conflict that is almost hard to hold in your mind at once. And right alongside them: farmers. Ordinary farmers whose perseverance and faith in the land helped shape this whole area.
Not generals, not famous men — just people who stayed, and worked, and are remembered here because somebody thought they ought to be. The Blevins Cemetery Association was founded in 1958, and by 1991 they had restored this site — brought it back, tended what time and weather had worn down. A community deciding that this ground still mattered.
Some places are famous for what happened there. This one is sacred for who was left there. And now you know whose land you're standing on.
What the marker says
Born in the Republic of Texas in 1838, Amanda Ruble Taylor moved to this are in 1855. This cemetery began with her burial on family land in 1875. Her widower, the Rev. Issac Taylor, deeded land for this cemetery to the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in 1879. The numerous infant grave sites reveal the harsh realities of frontier life. Buried alongside veterans of conflicts from the Texas Revolution to World War II are farmers whose perseverance and faith in the land helped shape this area. The Blevins Cemetery Association, founded in 1958, restored this site in 1991.