La Feria Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Way down in Cameron County, in the Rio Grande Valley town of La Feria, there's a quiet piece of ground that's been holding the community's memories since 1917. That's when a man named Bernt Anderson deeded the land for that purpose.

A graveyard. A place set apart. And once ground is set apart like that, it starts collecting stories whether anyone plans it or not.

The first recorded burials were children. Two of them. Valda Wessels, born in 1918, gone in 1920.

Harry P. McNeil, Jr., born in 1919, gone in 1921. The marker doesn't linger there, but you should.

Those are the first names written into this place. In the northwest corner of the cemetery, there's a section the community calls Babyland. It holds the unmarked graves of several children.

No names carved in stone out there, but the community gave that corner a name of its own, and that's a kind of remembering too. The rest of the grounds hold community leaders, and veterans, men who served in the Spanish American War, in World War I, and in World War II. Three wars represented in one quiet graveyard in Cameron County.

And then there are the families, the ones who have buried several generations here, planting roots in this ground the same way other folks plant roots in the living world above it. La Feria Cemetery. It started with a deed, it started with children, and it's been keeping faith with this community ever since.

What the marker says

This community graveyard dates to 1917, when Bernt Anderson deeded land for that purpose. The first recorded burials in the cemetery were of two children: Valda Wessels (1918-1920) and Harry P. McNeil, Jr. (1919-1921). A plot in the northwest corner of the cemetery is known as "Babyland" and contains the unmarked graves of several children. Also interred here are community leaders and veterans of the spanish American War, World War I, and World War II. Some families have buried several generations in the quiet graveyard. (1990)