Cee Vee Cemetery

Duane's take

The way I tell it, I'm drawing straight from the official marker; so here's the story as it's been recorded out here in Cottle County. Now, out on the rolling prairie of Cottle County, there's a place that holds more history than it might first let on. The Cee Vee community dates to 1926, but its roots reach back further than that: back to the open range, back to cattlemen named Clairborne Varner and Charles Goodnight, who grazed their herds through this country under the C V brand.

Two names. One brand. And a stretch of Texas grassland that would one day become something else entirely.

Because that's how it goes out here. Ranchland gave way to family farms, and where cowboys once pushed cattle, a community took hold. Before long, Cee Vee could boast a cotton gin, stores, churches, and a school.

The kind of place that builds itself up quiet and steady, one season at a time. And then, as communities do, it started burying its dead. Tradition holds (and tradition out here tends to know what it's talkin' about) that the very first grave at this prairie cemetery was that of a cowboy, buried near the C V ranch house.

No marked stone. Just the land, and what the land remembers. The earliest marked grave belongs to Eugene Ballard, who died in 1931.

That same year, a man named W.J. Tyson donated the land for the cemetery itself. So in a sense, the ground was given and the ground was needed almost in the same breath.

In the 1950s, the Cee Vee Home Demonstration Club gave the site a name that fit it: Haven of Rest Cemetery. Citizens donated funds for a fence. And over the years, something quietly remarkable held true: burial sites remained free.

No charge to lay your people down. That's not nothing. That's a community deciding, together, what matters.

Walk through there today and you'll find the graves of veterans, men who served in the First World War and the Second. You'll find curbed plots enclosing the burials of families whose very names echo the early history of this corner of Cottle County. An association maintains the grounds now, keeping faith with everyone resting there.

Cee Vee Cemetery, Haven of Rest Cemetery, has been carrying that history since before most folks thought to write it down. And out here on the prairie, that kind of faithfulness is its own kind of monument.

What the marker says

The Cee Vee community dates to 1926, with earlier ties to cattlemen Clairborne Varner and Charles Goodnight, who grazed herds in the area using the C V brand. As ranchland gave way to family farms, the community that developed here soon boasted a cotton gin, stores, churches and a school. Tradition holds the first grave at this prairie cemetery was that of a cowboy buried near the C V ranch house. The earliest marked grave is for Eugene Ballard, who died in 1931, the year W.J. Tyson donated land for the cemetery. In the 1950s, the Cee Vee Home Demonstration Club named the site Haven of Rest Cemetery. Citizens donated funds for a fence, and over the years burial sites have remained free. Graves include those of veterans of U.S. military service dating to World Wars I and II. Curbed plots enclose the burials of family members whose names reflect the early history of the area. Maintained by an association, Cee Vee Cemetery (Haven of Rest Cemetery) serves as an important link to the early history of this part of Cottle County. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2004