Haley Memorial Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna pass it along just the same. William Haley was born in 1831, and his wife Lucinda Catherine came into this world in 1834, and together they packed up everything they had and left Missouri behind in 1857, pointed straight at Texas. They found their patch of ground out here in Dallas County, put down roots, worked the land, and after a while they were running a general store too; farm and commerce, side by side, the way a lot of pioneer families made it work.

By most measures, things were going along just fine. And then 1875 arrived. Lucinda Catherine Haley died that year, and William faced the kind of loss that changes a man's sense of what matters.

He set aside one acre of the family farm (just one quiet acre) as a place to lay her to rest. That was the beginning of Haley Memorial Cemetery. Now, a cemetery that starts with one grave on one acre doesn't stay that way if the family holds onto the land.

Through the years, more members of the Haley family and their related families were interred in that graveyard, one by one, generation by generation. William himself would join them when he passed in 1908. The story doesn't end there either.

In 1963 (decades after William was gone), a Haley granddaughter gave an additional two acres of land, and the plot was enlarged to hold what the family had become. One acre set aside in grief. Two more acres offered up in memory.

And the cemetery stands today as a reminder of the pioneer settlers who first worked this ground and decided, quietly and permanently, that this was home.

What the marker says

William Haley (1831 - 1908) and his wife Lucinda Catherine (1834 - 1875) came to Texas from Missouri in 1857. They established a farm in this area and later operated a general store. When Lucinda Haley died in 1875, a one-acre site on the family farm was set aside as a cemetery. Through the years more members of the Haley and related families were interred in the graveyard. The plot was enlarged in 1963 when a Haley granddaughter gave an additional two acres of land. The historic cemetery serves as a reminder of the area's pioneer settlers.