DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official Calvary Cemetery marker has to say, out there on Nogalus Prairie in Trinity County. Pull up a chair, because this one's got layers. Sometime between 1865 and 1874 — and that's a window wide enough to drive a wagon train through — Alexander and Jane Tucker Smith packed up their lives in Alabama and headed for Texas.
They brought their daughter Ann and their sons Thomas, Rederick, Kirby, and Nathan Marion, and they put down roots in a place called Nogalus Prairie. Now the land itself came into focus on June 2, 1874, when Nathan M. Smith acquired 156 acres right here.
But here's where the story turns heavy. According to Smith family tradition, sometime before 1888, Alexander Smith set aside one acre out of his son Nathan's 156 to bury that very son — because Nathan had been murdered. A father carving a grave from his boy's own land.
You sit with that a moment. That's the tradition. That's how the family tells it.
But the ground itself tells a slightly different story, the way ground sometimes does. The grave sites of James McClain and an unidentified child of J.W. and T.E. Bowman both carry 1875 dates, which means people were being laid to rest here before the family memory of that first deliberate burial.
The cemetery was already at work before anyone officially called it one. In time, the land was deeded to the local Calvary Baptist Church by descendants of Alexander Smith. And the place kept growing, the way a community's losses tend to.
In 1908, Mrs. Z.A. Lovelady donated two and a half acres, and J.M. and Millie Kee added another four-tenths of an acre.
Then in 1965, Davis family members donated another one and six-tenths acres. The Calvary Cemetery Association, formed in 1962, went a step further — in 1988 they purchased two acres outright from the Champion International Corporation. By 1992, when folks recorded the grave sites here, they counted more than 380.
Veterans of the Civil War resting alongside veterans of World Wars I and II and the Korean Conflict. Generations of a community, all finding their way back to one acre that a grieving father once set aside on the Texas prairie. That's how a cemetery becomes a place.
One loss at a time.
What the marker says
Sometime between 1865 and 1874 Alexander and Jane (Tucker) Smith moved from Alabama and settled here in the community of Nogalus Prairie with their daughter, Ann, and sons Thomas, Rederick, Kirby, and NAthan Marion. The Cemetery site was originally part of 156 acres acquired by Nathan M. Smith on June 2, 1874. According to Smith family tradition, on a date prior to 1888 the cemetery was established when Alexander Smith set aside a one-acre section here out of his son's 156 acres to bury Nathan, who had been murdered. However, the 1875 dates on the grave sites of James McClain and the unidentified child of J.W. and T.E. Bowman indicate earlier burials. The cemetery later was deeded to the local Calvary Baptist Church by descendants of Alexander Smith. In 1908 Mrs. Z.A. Lovelady donated 2.5 cares and J.M. and Millie Kee donated 0.4 acres to enlarge the cemetery. In 1965 another 1.6 acres was donated to the cemetery by Davis family members. The Calvary Cemetery Association, formed in 1962, purchased two acres from the Champion International Corporation in 1988. Among the more than 380 grave site recorded here in 1992 were those of veterans of the Civil War, World Wars I and II, and the Korean Conflict.