Bowman Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I tell it back to you. Bowman Cemetery. Collin County.

Four words and a number, and somehow they carry the whole weight of a community's history. Established 1868. Now think about that for a second.

Eighteen sixty-eight. The Civil War had only just let go of this land, and somebody, some family or gathering of neighbors out here on the Texas prairie, looked at a piece of ground and said, this is where we put our people to rest. That's not a small thing.

That's a declaration. That's roots going down. We don't know from the marker who the Bowmans were, so I won't pretend otherwise.

What we do know is that the name held. The ground held. And in 2008, the state of Texas looked at this cemetery and recognized it as a Historic Texas Cemetery.

That designation doesn't come easy and it doesn't come cheap in terms of time and care. Somebody tended this place through all the years between 1868 and that recognition. Somebody kept the fence, kept the memory, kept the names legible against the slow work of wind and rain and time.

Bowman Cemetery, Collin County. Established 1868. Still here.

Some things in Texas just refuse to be forgotten.

What the marker says

BOWMAN CEMETERY ESTABLISHED 1868 HISTORIC TEXAS CEMETERY - 2008