Guiceland Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm gonna pass it along to you. This is the story of Guiceland Cemetery, out in Houston County, and it starts the way so many things in Texas do: with a piece of family land, and a loss too heavy to carry far. About 1871, a family named Guice buried their infant son, William, right there on their own property.

Benjamin and Caston Dania Guice laid that child to rest, and in doing so, they planted something that would outlast them by generations. A cemetery had begun. Now, the oldest tombstone still standing belongs to George W.

Brightman, born in 1830, gone by 1877. He watched over that ground before most folks even knew the place had a name. And the place grew.

Hundreds of members of the Guiceland Community came to rest here over the years, and when you walk through what they left behind, you're walking through the whole long story of Texas itself. Veterans of the Texas Revolution are buried here. Men who went off to fight in the Civil War.

Soldiers from World War I and World War II. Korea. Vietnam.

Generation after generation, the community kept bringing its people home to this same patch of earth. But a cemetery isn't just a place for the dead. For a good long while, a one-room building at the site did double duty, serving as a school for the living and a gathering place for funeral services when someone passed.

That went on until 1908. Then, in 1936, the community built a tabernacle right there on the grounds, and that building stood until 1959, when a new one took its place. What started with one small grave on family land became a place that held an entire community's history, its children and its soldiers, its schooldays and its sorrows.

That's Guiceland Cemetery, and it's still there, keeping the count.

What the marker says

This cemetery was established about 1871, when William Guice, infant son of Benjamin and Caston Dania Guice, was buried on family land. The oldest tombstone is that of George W. Brightman (1830-1877). Hundreds of members of the Guiceland Community are buried here, including veterans of the Texas Revolution, the Civil War, World Wars I and II, Korea and Vietnam. A one-room building at the site served as a school and location for funeral services until 1908. A tabernacle built in 1936 was replaced by a new building in 1959.