DUANE
Duane's take
Here's what the official marker has to say, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, some graves hold a body just once. And then there's Cynthia Ann Parker.
The marker stands in Anderson County, Texas, and it marks a piece of ground that has tried — three separate times — to be her final resting place. Three times. Let that settle in for a moment before we even get to the beginning of the story.
The beginning is 1836. Fort Parker. Cynthia Ann Parker is captured from the fort by Indians.
That's the word the marker uses, and that single sentence carries the full weight of a childhood interrupted, a life redirected, a story that would stretch across decades and states and generations. Then comes 1860. Texas Rangers recapture her.
Twenty-four years after that first moment at Fort Parker, she is brought back. But here is a thing the marker makes plain by what it commemorates next: Cynthia Ann Parker was the mother of Quanah Parker, war chief of the Comanches. That is not a footnote.
That is the axis on which a great deal of Texas and Comanche history turns. She is buried here first. Right here, in Anderson County.
The first gravesite. But the ground did not keep her long — not in the permanent way of things. In 1910, she is reburied.
Post Oak Cemetery, Oklahoma. And then again. 1957. Fort Sill Post Cemetery, Oklahoma.
A second reburial. A third resting place. Three graves for one woman, and the first one is right here in Anderson County, Texas.
Some people leave a mark on a place. Cynthia Ann Parker left a marker on three of them.
What the marker says
Captured from Ft. Parker by Indians, 1836. Recaptured by Texas Rangers in 1860. Mother of Quanah Parker, war chief of Comanches. First buried here. Reburied in Post Oak Cemetery, Okla., 1910. Reburied Ft. Sill Post Cemetery, Okla., 1957. Recorded --1969