DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna do my best to do it justice. Some places carry their history right there in the ground beneath your feet. El Carmen Cemetery — Cementerio del Carmen — is one of those places.
And if you think cemeteries are quiet, still things, well. This one started with a battle. Nineteenth-century journals and other written historical accounts trace the origin of this cemetery to the burial of casualties of the Battle of Medina.
That battle was fought on August 18, 1813, and it was the result of a failed attempt — and I want you to sit with that word, failed — a failed attempt by a Republican Army of the North to free Mexico from Royalist Spanish Rule. That army was no small outfit. We're talking somewhere between twelve hundred and fifteen hundred men: Mexicans, Anglo-Americans, and Indians, all fighting together under that same cause.
The Royalist army was victorious. And hundreds of men who died on that battlefield were later interred at this site — between 1813 and 1817, the marker tells us, the dead were brought here. The church of Nuestra Señora del Carmen itself traces its origin to a chapel built right over the soldiers' burial crypt.
Think about that. A house of worship rising up from the resting place of men who fell fighting for something they believed in. And then, as pioneer settlers established homes in this area, the burial site grew into a community cemetery.
That's often how it goes — land that holds the dead also draws the living. Among those interred here are the families of Domingo Losoya and Dionicio Martinez, both of whom received Mexican land grants surrounding the cemetery property. Their roots and this ground are bound together in a way that goes deeper than most.
But here's a name that'll give you pause. Also buried in this cemetery is Enrique Esparza — a man who, as a child, survived the Battle of the Alamo. Whatever he saw inside those walls, he carried it through a long life, and at the end of it, he was laid to rest here at El Carmen.
And resting near him is Gustave Toudouze, a French immigrant who made his way to this community and became a prominent local naturalist and businessman. The range of lives in this place is something else. A cemetery association formed in 1927 has been maintaining this historic site ever since, and the cemetery continues in use today for the local community.
The living tending to the dead, just as they have since those first soldiers were brought here more than two centuries ago. Some ground just has more weight to it. This is that kind of ground.
What the marker says
Numerous 19th-century journals and other written historical accounts trace the origin of this cemetery to the burial of casualities of the Battle of Medina. Fought on August 18, 1813, the battle was the result of a failed attempt by a Republican Army of the North, consisting of about 1200 to 1500 Mexicans, Anglo-Americans, and Indians, to free Mexico from Royalist Spanish Rule. The Royalist army was victorious, and hundreds of men who died on the battlefield later were interred at this site between 1813 and 1817. The church of Nuestra Senora del Carmen traces its origin to a chapel built over the soldiers' burial crypt. The burial site became a community cemetery as pioneer settlers established homes in this area. Among those interred in the graveyard are the families of Domingo Losoya and Dionicio Martinez, who received Mexican land grants surrounding the cemetery property. Also buried here are Enrique Esparza, who as a child survived the Battle of the Alamo, and French immigrant Gustave Toudouze, a prominent local naturalist and businessman. A cemetery association formed in 1927 maintains the historic site, which continues in use as a cemetery for the local community.