Dalys/Dailey Community Cemetery

Duane's take

The official marker tells it this way, and I'll do my best to tell it right. Way back in the 1850s, the pioneer Daily family and others put down roots in what would become known as the Dalys Community, out here in Houston County. Now, a community is more than a name on a map.

It's a place where people live, and love, and eventually, say their goodbyes. That last part is where this story turns. In 1876, a woman named Ethalinda Meriwether, wife of Dr.

Francis Lewis Meriwether, passed away. And in the way of tight-knit communities, people came together to do right by her and by all who would follow. Charles B.

Dailey, along with his sister Emma Catherine and her husband James A. Hill, gave land so the community would have a proper cemetery. That's the kind of gesture that outlasts the people who make it.

The Dalys Community Cemetery didn't just serve those who lived right there, either. It opened its grounds to residents of nearby Reynard as well, drawing in families from the surrounding country. And over the years, the cemetery received veterans.

Men who served in the Civil War, men who served in World War I, men who served in World War II, all of them resting together in that donated ground. Then, more than a century after the community first took shape, the name was officially changed, in 1981, to Dailey Community Cemetery. One letter different, maybe, but it carried all the same history with it.

What the marker says

The pioneer Daily family and others founded the Dalys Community in the 1850s. When Ethalinda Meriwether, wife of Dr. Francis Lewis Meriwether, died in 1876, Charles B. Dailey and his sister and brother-in-law, Emma Catherine and James A. Hill, gave land for a community cemetery. In addition to the families of the Dalys/Dailey Community, the cemetery also served residents of nearby Reynard. Those interred here include veterans of the Civil War, World War I and World War II. The name was officially changed to Dailey Community Cemetery in 1981.