Happy Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna give it to you straight out of Swisher County. The Happy Cemetery. Now that name alone ought to make you slow down on the highway and wonder, and wonder you should.

It all started on March 18, 1912, when the Happy Cemetery Association got itself organized. They had a purpose right from the jump: they went out and purchased five acres of land from a local businessman by the name of James F. White.

Five acres, and they were thoughtful about how they laid it out, designating two adjacent cemeteries on that land, one of them specifically set aside for Catholics. Two communities of the faithful, resting side by side under the Swisher County sky. Now the oldest recorded grave out there belongs to William T.

King, born in 1871, gone by 1913. He was among the first to be committed to that ground, and his marker has been keepin' watch ever since. The association didn't stop at just the land, either.

They built a small frame house right there on the property, and for decades, that little building served as a gathering place for the annual decoration day activities. Folks would come out year after year, from 1915 all the way to 1985, to tend the graves and honor the ones who'd gone before. Seventy years of decoration days under that same roof.

Then in 1985, the frame house was razed to make more room for plots. The living made way for the dead, as they tend to do. And who is buried out in those five acres?

Numerous local pioneers, veterans of wars, and here is the part worth sittin' with: both Confederate and Union Civil War veterans share that ground. Men who once stood on opposite sides of the bloodiest conflict this country ever saw, now neighbors for eternity in a place called Happy. There's something in that worth a long, quiet moment on the road.

What the marker says

The Happy Cemetery Association, organized on March 18, 1912. Purchased five acres of land for two adjacent cemeteries (one specifically for Catholics) from local businessman James F. White. The oldest recorded grave is that of William T. King (1871-1913). The association built a small frame house which was used as a gathering place for annual decoration day activities from1915 to 1985 when it was razed to make more room for plots. Numerous local pioneers and veterans are buried here, including both Confederate and Union Civil War veterans. (1991)