Concord Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to honor every word. Out here in Fort Bend County, at the end of the nineteenth century, a community of Mennonites settled in — quiet, purposeful folk who put down roots on the thirty-three lots of the Barnabas Wickson league. And like any community that means to stay, they began, in time, to bury their dead.

It is believed the first souls laid to rest on this particular piece of ground were Heinrich Reimer, who died in 1898, and Maria Klassen, who followed in 1899. Then came the year 1900 — and 1900 had a long reach in this part of Texas. Siblings Maria and Isaac Neufeldt both died of typhoid fever that same year, and they are thought to be interred here too.

Four souls, two years running, resting in ground that had not yet even been officially set aside for the purpose. That formality came in 1905, when a man named George W. Howell — a non-Mennonite, the marker is careful to note — deeded one acre of his land, land that adjoined the Concord school, for a public cemetery.

A generous act, quietly recorded. The very next year, 1906, Jacob Suderman, a Mennonite cemetery trustee — a man who had presumably helped tend this ground — died, and probably is buried in it himself. There's something in that worth sitting with for a moment.

Now, that devastating 1900 storm had already begun doing what devastating storms do — shaking loose what people thought was settled. The Mennonites began moving away after it. And as they went, others arrived: settlers of German, Czech, and Polish descent, who came to occupy the area and, in turn, came to use the burial ground.

The community changed. The cemetery held them all. The earliest marked grave on the site belongs to Anesha Dobes, buried in 1913.

Marked — that word does a quiet kind of work. Because in 1995, when an archeological investigation was conducted here, ten unmarked graves were discovered. Ten.

People who were laid in this ground, mourned by somebody, and then — over the turning of years — lost to the record. The marker doesn't name them. It can't.

But it counts them. And sometimes, being counted is the last and only dignity a place can offer. Concord Cemetery, Fort Bend County — where the ground remembers more than the stones do.

What the marker says

At the end of the 19th century, a community of Mennonites settled on the 33 lots of the Barnabas Wickson league. It is believed that the first persons interred on this site were Heinrich Reimer (d. 1898) and Maria Klassen (d. 1899). Siblings Maria and Isaac Neufeldt died of typhoid fever in 1900 and are also thought to be interred here. In 1905 George W. Howell, a non-Mennonite, deeded one acre of his land adjoining the Concord school for a public cemetery. Jacob Suderman, a Mennonite cemetery trustee, died in 1906 and probably is buried here. After the devastating 1900 storm, the Mennonites began moving away. Settlers of German, Czech and Polish descent began to occupy the area and use the burial ground. The earliest marked grave is that of Anesha Dobes, who was buried in 1913. During an archeological investigation in 1995, ten unmarked graves were discovered. (2000) Incise on back: Funded by Concord Cemetery Association of Fairchilds, Inc.