Brooks Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker says about Brooks Cemetery, out in Presidio County. Now, every family needs a place to rest, and every cemetery needs a story to start it. This one starts the way a lot of West Texas stories do: with a man who came a long way before he found where he belonged.

George H. Brooks was born in 1833, served in a California volunteer unit during the Civil War, and then, sometime in the 1860s, made his way to Presidio County. That's not a short journey in any era, and Presidio County is not a soft landing.

But he stayed. In 1878, he married Ygnacia Reza, a native of Mexico, and together they built a life in that hard, beautiful country along the river. Now, the cemetery that bears the Brooks name; it didn't begin with George.

It began with loss. Their son, Albion E. Brooks, was buried there in 1904, and that burial is where this ground became hallowed ground.

George himself followed, as we all do; he died in 1911. Ygnacia lived on for decades more, until 1948, long enough to see the world change around her in ways that would've been hard to imagine when she and George were young. And she's buried there too, alongside her husband, on land that carries their name.

The family grew in more ways than one. Among those resting in Brooks Cemetery is Robert Speed, born in 1878, died in 1940; a man who carried two titles that meant something in this part of Texas: former Texas Ranger, and deputy sheriff. Also interred here are friends and relatives from the Fuentes and Gonzales families, woven into the Brooks story the way families out here tend to be; across borders, across generations, across the kind of distances that only matter until they don't.

What makes this cemetery something more than a footnote is what the marker says plainly: it remains active. The Shafter community still maintains it. That's the part that lands, I think.

A lot of cemeteries get started. Not all of them get kept. This one does.

What the marker says

George H. Brooks (1833-1911) served in a California volunteer unit during the Civil War before settling in Presidio County in the 1860s. In 1878 he married Mexican native Ygnacia Reza. This cemetery began with the burial of their son, Albion E. Brooks, in 1904. George and Ygnacia Brooks (d. 1948) and other members of the Brooks family, including former Texas Ranger and deputy sheriff Robert Speed (1878-1940), are buried here. Also interred here are friends and relatives of the Brookses in the Fuentes and Gonzales families. The cemetery remains active and is maintained by the Shafter community. Sesquicentennial of Texas Statehood 1845-1995