Old Dublin Memorial Park Cemetery

Duane's take

This one comes straight from the official marker, and I'm gonna tell it to you the way it deserves to be told. You're listening to Duane, and this is Old Dublin Memorial Park Cemetery, Erath County, Texas. Now settle in, because this story starts the way a lot of Texas stories do.

With a death, and a gift, and a name that stuck for nearly a hundred years. The year was 1864. A young woman named Ellen, daughter of J.

H. Keith, passed away. That loss became the first burial in this ground.

And out of that grief, something lasting took shape. A man known as William Keith, though most folks called him Big Bill, donated this land as a memorial to his Aunt Ellen. His condition was simple and generous in equal measure: the ground would be open for free public interments.

No charge. No exclusions. Just a place where people could lay their own to rest.

They called it The Old Dublin Cemetery, and that name held all the way until 1961, when an endowment was created and the name was changed to what you see on this marker today. Old Dublin Memorial Park Cemetery. Nearly a century under one name, and then a new chapter.

Now here is the part that will stay with you. There are about fourteen hundred graves in this cemetery. And of those, two hundred and ninety-two have no names.

No inscriptions, no carved stone identities. Just filed stones, or markers left by funeral homes, quiet placeholders for people whose names the record did not keep. That is a weight worth sitting with for a moment.

More than two hundred souls, remembered in presence but not in name. And still, as of 1978 when this marker was set down, this graveyard was in use. Big Bill Keith made a promise in honor of his Aunt Ellen, and that promise has been kept, grave by grave, generation by generation, right down to the present day.

What the marker says

The earliest use of this burial ground was in 1864 at the death of Ellen, daughter of J. H. Keith. William ("Big Bill") Keith donated this memorial to his Aunt Ellen with the understanding that it would be used for free public interments. It was called "The Old Dublin Cemetery" until 1961 when an endowment was created and the name was changed. There are about 1400 graves including 292 without names that are noted only with filed stones or funeral home markers. This graveyard is still in use. (1978)