Hudson Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's the story as the official marker tells it, and it's one worth telling right. We're talking about Hudson Cemetery in Tarrant County, and it starts, the way so many things in Texas do, with loss. John Dickinson and Winnie Hudson (Winnie being a Traylor before she married) had a daughter named Ary Mae.

And in 1878, Ary Mae died. She became the first person laid to rest on the family's own land. Now, that's a weight no parent should carry.

But here's the part that stops you cold: Ary Mae had a twin. Her name was Ara Bell. And Ara Bell had already been buried that same year; earlier in 1878, way up in Montague County.

Two girls. One year. Two different patches of Texas earth.

But not forever. At some point, Ara Bell was brought back, reinterred right there beside her sister. Together at last, on the land where one of them had always been.

The years rolled on, and by 1892, John Dickinson and Winnie Hudson made a decision that would outlast them both: they deeded three acres to the trustees of the Hudson Cemetery, opening it up for use by the surrounding community. What had been a family's grief became a community's ground. Most of the burials that followed date from the early twentieth century, neighbors and pioneers finding their rest in that same soil.

A cemetery fund was organized in 1954 and ran through 1965. Then quiet for nearly a decade, until 1974, when it was resurrected (and I don't think that word is accidental) as the Hudson Cemetery once more. By 1996, someone walked those grounds and counted.

More than five hundred graves. Five hundred stories rooted in Tarrant County clay. Hudson Cemetery, the marker tells us, continues to serve as a record of Tarrant County pioneers.

And that's exactly right. Some records are kept in courthouses. Some are kept in stone.

What the marker says

When John Dickinson and Winnie (Traylor) Hudson's daughter Ary Mae died in 1878, she was the first person to be buried on the family land. Her twin, Ara Bell, who had been buried in Montague County earlier that year, was later reinterred beside Ary Mae. In 1892 the Hudsons deeded three acres to the trustees of the Hudson Cemetery for use by the surrounding community. Most of the Hudson Cemetery burials date from the early 20th century. From 1954 to 1965 a cemetery fund was organized; it was resurrected in 1974 as the Hudson Cemetery. More than 500 graves were counted in 1996. Hudson Cemetery continues to serve as a record of Tarrant County pioneers. (1998)