Pioneer Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how that marker tells it, out on the Dawson County roadside. Frank Conner gave this ground. That's where it starts.

A man gave land, and a county got its first burial ground. And the first soul laid to rest here, on November the tenth, nineteen hundred and four, was Mrs. G.

W. Pate. Now here's the part that stays with you: Mrs.

Pate had been the one who suggested the cemetery in the first place. She saw the need for it, she spoke up for it, and then she became the first one it received. The ground she called into being called her back first.

That's the kind of thing that makes you go quiet for a moment on a long drive. The plot took in its people, and then in nineteen oh seven, it closed. Done.

A short run, just those few years, and a community's earliest losses gathered in. But the story has one more chapter. In nineteen forty-nine, a man named W.

R. Kelly was buried here beside his wife, the ground opening just that once after four decades of stillness to keep a husband and wife together. The twenty-two others the marker names read like a roll call of a frontier county finding its footing: Montie Andrews, Carrie Baker, Mrs.

J. M. Baker, infants Bowser, Dickenson, McNew, and Senter, Mrs.

Zeke Harris, G. W. Kelly, Eunice C.

Lindsey, John R. Lindsey, W. W.

McElwain, S. H. Maxwell, Mrs.

Elmira Pate, Ollie Pate, Frances C. Printz, John Puryear, Floyd Rains, John Earl Seeds, Roger Simpson, Mart Trammel, and Elizabeth Wright. Infants and elders, husbands and wives, people whose names might have slipped entirely out of memory if this ground, and this marker, hadn't held on to them.

That's what a pioneer cemetery does. It's not just the first burial ground in Dawson County. It's the place that kept the names.

What the marker says

First burial ground in Dawson County, given by Frank Conner. First grave, Nov. 10, 1904, for Mrs. G. W. Pate, who had suggested cemetery. Plot closed 1907, except for 1949 burial of W. R. Kelly beside his wife. The 22 others here: Montie Andrews, Carrie Baker, Mrs. J. M. Baker, infants Bowser, Dickenson, McNew, Senter, Mrs. Zeke Harris, G. W. Kelly, Eunice C. Lindsey, John R. Lindsey, W. W. McElwain, S. H. Maxwell, Mrs. Elmira Pate, Ollie Pate, Frances C. Printz, John Puryear, Floyd Rains, John Earl Seeds, Roger Simpson, Mart Trammel, Elizabeth Wright. (1964)