Lindenau Community Cemetery

Duane's take

The official marker for the Lindenau Community Cemetery in DeWitt County tells it like this, and I'm going to pass it along just the way it comes down to us. Now, picture two brothers standing at the junction of Sandies Creek and the Guadalupe River in 1891. Charles and Daniel Wild had come a long way from Germany, and when they looked around at the great oak trees spreading their arms across that Texas bottomland, something stirred in them.

Those oaks reminded them of the linden trees back home. So they gave the settlement a name that carried the old country with them: Lindenau. Daniel's wife, Eloise Grohmann Wild, came out to this land with him.

And all three of them, Charles, Daniel, and Eloise, are buried here in this very ground, alongside their descendants. That's the kind of place this is. A place where the people who named it ended up resting in it.

The cemetery itself was established in 1905 as the St. John Lutheran Cemetery, sitting on the James Bell Survey in the heart of that German farming community. For decades it served the congregation well.

Then in 1957, the officers of the church transferred the title of the cemetery land to the church's corporation. Time kept moving, as it does, and in 1972 community members came together and formed the Lindenau Community Cemetery Association, Incorporated, to take care of the grounds. And here's where the name changes.

By then, people from other denominations were also interred in the cemetery, so the name was changed to the Lindenau Community Cemetery. Two years later, the land itself was transferred to the cemetery association. The community had claimed it fully for their own.

The oldest known burial here belongs to Heinrich Budde, born in 1852, gone in 1903. His stone has been keeping watch over this place for well over a century now. Walk through those grounds and the history stacks up quiet and deep.

Veterans are buried here. Members of fraternal organizations. And then there are the harder stories, the victims of a flu epidemic from the early 1900s, whole families struck down in a season that didn't spare the young or the strong.

There's a separate children's section too, infants laid to rest apart from the adults, which was a common practice among Texas Germans. That detail alone will stop you in your tracks if you let it. The layout of the cemetery is orderly, geometric, symmetrical.

It looks like something planned by people who believed in structure and permanence and doing things right. Some of the headstones are inscribed in the German language, little windows back to a world that crossed an ocean and put down roots in DeWitt County. Hundreds of graves in all.

A significant burial ground for descendants of those original German farmers who settled this region at the turn of the twentieth century. Charles and Daniel Wild looked at some Texas oaks and thought of home. What they built here turned out to be exactly that, a home, in the most lasting sense of the word.

What the marker says

The settlement of Lindenau was established in 1891 near the junction of Sandies Creek and the Guadalupe River. The large oak trees reminded early German pioneers Charles and Daniel Wild of the linden trees that grow in Germany, thus the name "Lindenau." The brothers and Daniel's wife, Eloise Grohmann Wild, are buried here, along with their descendants. Located on the James Bell Survey in the German farming community of Lindenau, the Lindenau Community Cemetery was established as the St. John Lutheran Cemetery in 1905. In 1957, the officers of the church transferred the title of the cemetery land to the church's corporation, and in 1972, community members formed the Lindenau Community Cemetery Association, Inc. to care for the cemetery. At that time, the name was changed to Lindenau Community Cemetery, as people from other denominations were also interred in the cemetery. Two years later, the land was transferred to the cemetery association. The oldest burial in the cemetery is that of Heinrich Budde (1852-1903). Many veterans are buried here, along with members of fraternal organizations, victims of an early 1900s local flu epidemic and infants buried in a separate children's section, a common practice among Texas Germans. The spatial layout is very orderly, geometric and symmetrical, and some headstones in the cemetery are inscribed in the German language. This historic cemetery has hundreds of graves and is a significant burial ground for many descendants of the original German farmers who settled this region at the turn of the twentieth century. HISTORIC TEXAS CEMETERY - 2010