Duke Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Duke Cemetery, out there in Johnson County. Now, most cemeteries have a founder. Duke Cemetery had a grief.

Dr. John Duke, born in 1827, and his wife Martha, born in 1836, pulled up stakes and moved their family to Johnson County in 1854. They found their ground, built their farm, and settled into the community that would come to be called Willow Springs.

They had every reason to believe they'd planted roots in good soil. And then 1870 came. Their daughter Zilla, just ten years old, died, and they laid her to rest right there on the family farm.

That's the kind of thing that changes a piece of land. It stops being just a farm and becomes something else entirely. Zilla was soon joined by her siblings Orson and Lucy.

The ground was filling up with Dukes, and not the kind of filling up a family hopes for. Then in 1878, Emma Griffin, a relative's child, was buried beside the Duke children. By that point, Dr.

Duke must have understood that this place was no longer only his to keep. So in 1879, he deeded the burial ground to the community. He gave it away, formalized the grief, made it a shared thing.

And the losses kept coming. Four more Duke children had died by 1882. Dr.

John Duke himself passed in 1884. Martha followed in 1888. The community they'd helped build, that Willow Springs community, went on filling the cemetery they'd consecrated with their sorrow.

Ranchers and farmers, teachers, merchants, ministers, soldiers. All of them finding their final rest on ground that a father and mother had set aside because they had no other way to honor what they'd lost. That's what a deed of land can carry, if you know how to read it.

What the marker says

Dr. John Duke (1827-1884), his wife Martha (1836-1888), and their family moved to Johnson County in 1854. They established a farm in the area later called the Willow Springs Community. When their ten-year-old daughter Zilla died in 1870, they buried her on the family farm. Zilla was soon joined by siblings Orson and Lucy. Emma Griffin, a relative's child, was buried beside the Duke children in 1878. Dr. Duke deeded the burial ground to the community in 1879; four more Duke children had died by 1882. Other Willow Springs residents interred here include ranchers and farmers, teachers, merchants, ministers, and soldiers. (1998)