Compere Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Out here in Jones County, there's a patch of ground that holds onto a world that otherwise vanished. A farming community called Compere, established in the 1880s on ranch land sold by the Compere brothers.

The community itself is gone now. But the cemetery remains. That's the whole story, really, told in miniature right there.

The land outlasts the living. The stones outlast the town. In 1900, Daniel and Callie Palmer came and settled in the area, bringing their children with them.

Seven of them. Henry, Wilder, William, Roman, Vernon, Ford, and Norbin. That's a household with some noise in it, I'd imagine.

The Palmers put down roots, and then in 1904 they did something that communities do when they're ready to commit to a place for the long haul. They deeded two acres of land for a community cemetery. That's not a small thing.

That's an acknowledgment that you plan to stay, and that you plan to grieve, and that you want somewhere worthy for both. The first known burial came that same year, 1904. The infant daughter of Mr. and Mrs.

O. H. Ashby.

A life barely begun, the first name written into that ground. The gravestones that stand there now tell the stories of former residents, community leaders, veterans of military conflicts. And among them, Carrie Shannon Palmer, who died in the 1918 influenza epidemic, that great wave of sickness that swept through so many communities just like this one.

Compere the town is gone. But two acres of Jones County soil still remember who was here, who led, who served, and who was loved.

What the marker says

This burial ground is all that remains of the farming community of Compere, established in the 1880s on ranch land sold by the Compere brothers. In 1900, Daniel and Callie Palmer settled in the area along with their children: Henry, Wilder, William, Roman, Vernon, Ford and Norbin. The Palmers deeded two acres of land for a community cemetery in 1904. The first known burial, that of the infant daughter of Mr. and Mrs. O. H. Ashby, took place the same year. Gravestones yield information on former residents, including Carrie Shannon Palmer, who died in the 1918 influenza epidemic, community leaders and veterans of military conflicts. (2001)