Lawrence Family Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Way out in Navarro County, there's a piece of ground that carries a whole family's story in its soil, and it starts long before the first burial ever took place. The land itself goes back to 1835, a grant that came to a man named David McCandless, born in 1791, gone in 1876, who arrived in Texas as a Robertson colonist.

That's the foundation, literally, that everything else rests on. McCandless put down roots on that grant, and the land passed to his daughter and son-in-law, Macca Orange Lawrence, born 1831, who would live all the way to 1925, and Joseph Thompson Lawrence, born 1825, who died in 1885. Two people who would tend that ground and eventually give it over to something more solemn than farming.

The cemetery opened in 1868. And the way a cemetery opens matters. This one opened with the burial of a six-year-old girl.

Sarah Medora. Joseph and Macca's daughter. Six years old.

You let that sit a moment before you move on. In the years that followed, others came to rest in that same ground. Another daughter, Ann Eliza, born 1853, died 1942, and her husband, George Washington Savage, born 1826, died 1899, both found their place there too.

Macca Lawrence, that same woman who had buried her child in that ground back in 1868, she deeded the burial plot in 1913. A formal act, a legal one, but also something deeper. A mother making sure the place where her little girl lay would be kept.

And it has been. The Lawrence Family Cemetery is maintained to this day by descendants. Some promises, it turns out, hold.

What the marker says

Situated on the 1835 land grant of David McCandless (1791-1876), who came to Texas as a Robertson colonist, this cemetery site was later owned by his daughter and son-in-law, Macca Orange (1831-1925) and Joseph Thompson Lawrence (1825-1885). The cemetery was opened in 1868 with the burial of their 6-year-old daughter, Sarah Medora. The graves of another daughter, Ann Eliza (1853-1942), and her husband, George Washington Savage (1826-1899), are also here. Deeded by Macca Lawrence in 1913, the burial plot is maintained by descendants.