Maple Cemetery

Duane's take

The marker at Maple Cemetery tells it this way, and I'm just passin' it along to you. Now, 1934 was not a kind year. The Great Depression had its boot on the neck of just about every county in Texas, and Bailey County was no exception.

The drought had moved in like it owned the place. And right in the middle of all that hardship, a man named Maple Wilson — who gave his name to the small community that had grown up around that part of the country — did something quietly remarkable. He donated four acres of his land so that community would have somewhere to put its dead.

Four acres. In the middle of drought. In the middle of the Depression.

That's the kind of generosity that doesn't ask for applause. The cemetery was used, briefly, up until the years of World War II. And here's where the story gets its weight, because today only three burials can be named with any certainty.

Three, out of however many souls rest in that ground. The first is an infant. Jay T.

Sanderson, who died in 1934, the very same year the cemetery came into being. That little life and that little burial ground arrived in the world at almost the same moment. The second is James Gentry, born 1885, died 1936.

James Gentry was struck by lightning. He left behind a wife and five children. The marker doesn't linger on it, and I won't either, except to say — five children, a wife, and a bolt out of the sky.

The third is Minnie Elizabeth Daricek, born 1897, died 1935. The marker says she died quietly while nursing her eleventh child. Quietly.

After eleven children, in the teeth of the Depression, in the middle of a drought. That one word — quietly — does more work than a paragraph could. And reportedly, somewhere in that four acres, three to five infants of Mexican descent are also interred.

Their names have not come down to us. But the marker makes sure we know they are there. That's what Maple Cemetery is, in the end.

Not a grand monument, not a well-kept roll of names. It's four donated acres holding people whose stories the hardest years nearly erased entirely. The marker calls it a reminder of the hard times faced by Bailey County families in the 1930s.

I'd call it more than a reminder. I'd call it a witness.

What the marker says

In 1934, in the midst of drought and the Great Depression, landowner Maple Wilson donated four acres for a cemetery for the small community that bore his name. It was used briefly up until World War II. Today, the identities of only three burials are known: infant Jay T. Sanderson (d. 1934); James Gentry (1885-1936), struck by lightning, leaving a wife and five children; and Minnie Elizabeth Daricek (1897-1935), who died quietly while nursing her eleventh child. Reportedly, three to five infants of Mexcian descent are also interred here. This burial ground is a reminder of the hard times face by Bailey County families in the 1930s.