Divide Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, the way I read it out on the road. Back in 1896, two families, the Smiths and the Chapmans, got together and donated four acres of land. Four acres, right here, set aside for a cemetery and a church lot.

And the very same year, they raised up a sanctuary on that site. Not for one denomination, not for two, but for all faiths. That was the intention from the start.

A place where everybody scattered out across those ranches along the divide between the watersheds of the Colorado and North Concho rivers could come together, no matter what they believed. You have to picture it. That country out there, the land between two great river systems, ranches spread thin across the miles, neighbors who might not see each other for weeks at a stretch.

And yet here was a place built to hold them all. Now, the first person laid to rest in that ground was Mrs. H.A.

Chapman, Callie, born in 1870 and gone by 1897. The Chapmans had given the land, and the land received one of their own first. That's the kind of thing that makes a place mean something.

Since then, about a hundred graves have come to fill those four acres. Among them, the earliest settlers of this part of Coke County. And veterans too, men who went to World War I, World War II, and Korea, and whose families brought them home to this quiet divide at the end.

What strikes me is that last line on the marker. This cemetery is still used by descendants of many pioneers. Still used.

More than a hundred years on from that 1896 donation, the families who came from those scattered ranches are still finding their way back here. That says more than any tall tale could.

What the marker says

In 1896 the Smith and Chapman families donated 4 acres here for a cemetery and church lot. A sanctuary for all faiths was built on the site the same year to serve the scattered ranches along the divide between the watersheds of the Colorado and North Concho rivers. First to be buried here was Mrs. H.A. (Callie) Chapman (1870-97). The cemetery contains about 100 graves, including those of the earliest settlers of this area of Coke County and veterans of World Wars I and II and Korea. This cemetery is still used by descendants of many pioneers. (1973)