Forrester Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to honor every word. Out here in Terry County, there's a piece of ground that holds more history than its quiet appearance lets on. Forrester Cemetery.

And the story of how it came to be is one worth sittin' with for a minute. Longtime residents recall the burial of a woman, probably Mrs. W.

C. Lusk, on this site in 1922 or 1923. Probably.

That word does a lot of work, doesn't it. Even the memory of the beginning is soft at the edges, the way memories of hard times often are. What they do know is that other burials followed, out in what was then an open field on J.

A. Forrester's farm. No formal cemetery yet.

Just a field, and the people a community couldn't keep. Then in 1925, Forrester and his wife Nealie made it official. They sold a two-acre plot to the Union Independent School District, and that ground took on a name.

Forrester Cemetery. The first recorded burial was that of Edna Mae Edwards, an infant who was born and died on April 23, 1926. Born and died on the same day.

One date does all the work. You walk through a place like this and you notice the unmarked graves, the children's graves. The marker doesn't let you look away from that.

It says plainly: those graves reflect the harsh conditions of farm life in the early part of the century. Farming this land asked everything of people, and sometimes it took everything too. The last recorded burial was that of Melvin Hill, in 1961.

After that, the community itself faded. The farms, the school district, the neighbors, all of it gone now. All except this.

Two acres that Forrester and Nealie sold, a field that received the dead before anyone thought to keep records, and a name that outlasted the place it belonged to. The cemetery is all that remains of the community. Sometimes that's how a story ends.

Not with a bang, not with a ceremony. Just a piece of ground, still standin', still keepin' its count.

What the marker says

Longtime residents recall the burial of a woman, probably Mrs. W. C. Lusk, on this site in 1922 or 1923. Other burials occurred here as well, in what was then an open field on J. A. Forrester's farm. Forrester and his wife Nealie sold a two-acre plot, which became known as Forrester Cemetery, to the Union Independent School District in 1925. The first recorded burial was that of Edna Mae Edwards, an infant who was born and died on April 23, 1926. The many unmarked and children's graves reflect the harsh conditions of farm life in the early part of the century. The last recorded burial was that of Melvin Hill in 1961. The cemetery is all that remains of the community. (1998)