Gageby Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm passing it right along to you. Out in Hemphill County, where the Texas panhandle stretches wide and quiet, a community called Gageby started taking shape around 1900. Settlers moved in, put down roots, built a school, set up the kinds of services that turn a patch of open land into a place people call home.

And for a good long while, Gageby grew. Now, every community eventually has to reckon with where it puts its dead. That reckoning came for Gageby in 1944, when a man named C.G.

Barker and his wife, Sarah A. Barker, donated three acres of land for a community cemetery. Three acres.

A gift, plain and simple, to the people around them. Here's the part that'll settle on you a little. Mr.

Barker passed away in January of 1945, and he became the very first settler buried in the Gageby Cemetery. The man who gave the land was the first to lie in it. Sarah, his wife, died in 1953, and she is buried right beside him.

And tucked into that same plot, there is one more. The Barkers had an infant who died in 1917, years before the cemetery even existed. In the 1970s, that child was moved to rest with them.

The family, finally, all in one place. Beyond the Barker plot, this ground holds teachers and veterans, church leaders and civic leaders, early settlers and the descendants who carried their names forward. People who shaped what Gageby was and kept it going.

The marker says it plainly: this cemetery continues to be an integral part of the community. That's not just a formality. When a place keeps burying its own, keeps tending that ground, it's still alive.

Gageby's roots go deep, and three acres of donated land is where you can see exactly how deep.

What the marker says

With settlers moving into the area around 1900, the community of Gageby began to grow with a school and other services. In 1944, Mr. C.G. Barker and his wife, Sarah A. Barker, donated three acres for a community cemetery. Mr. Barker passed away in January 1945 and was the first settler buried in the Gageby Cemetery. His wife, Sarah, who died in 1953, is buried beside him. Their infant who died in 1917 was moved to their plot in the 1970s. Other burials include prominent members of the Gageby community: teachers, veterans, church and civic leaders and early settlers and their descendants. This historic cemetery continues to be an integral part of the community. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2016