Plano Mutual Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll pass it along just as it stands. This is the story of Plano Mutual Cemetery, out in Collin County. Pull over if you need to; this one goes back a long way.

We're talkin' 1852. That's before the Civil War, before half the towns on this road even had names. And it all starts, as so many Texas stories do, with a piece of land and a man who didn't make it.

Dr. Lillie was buried on land belonging to his uncle, a Kentucky native named William Forman. Forman had come to Texas about 1850, bought himself 640 acres in 1851 from a man named Sanford Beck, and was just settlin' in when his nephew's death changed the whole character of that land.

Now, Lillie's death did something that death has a way of doin' out on the frontier: it called the neighbors together. A meeting of pioneer settlers was held to decide where, exactly, a graveyard ought to go. The owners of four sections of land that converged right there at that spot each promised equal portions for the cemetery.

Equal portions. A clean deal, a fair start. And yet (and here's one of those quiet ironies history just leaves sitting there) most of the earliest graves ended up on Forman land.

By the 1870s, what had been the Forman Family Cemetery was combined with cemetery tracts purchased by the local Masonic and Odd Fellows' lodges. The place was growin', changing hands in pieces, accumulating the weight of a community. Then in the 1890s, a group of local women organized the Ladies Mutual Cemetery Association to maintain the site.

Now don't let the modest name fool you. These women beautified the grounds, put up a pavilion, and doubled the size of the cemetery, and they kept at it for nearly forty years. Forty years of tendin' a place most folks only visit once.

By 1907, adjoining tracts were bought up by the Mutual Cemetery Association, the Woodmen of the World, and the Knights of Pythias. Organizations layering in, one after another, each one saying in its own way: this place matters, and we're gonna keep it. Then in 1928, the Plano Mutual Cemetery Association was formed, and it continues service to the site to this day.

Buried here are early pioneers and their descendants, war veterans, and elected officials. What started as one man's burial on his uncle's land in 1852 became, through meetings and purchases and forty years of women's work and a string of fraternal handshakes, something that's still standing. That's not just a cemetery.

That's a community deciding, over and over again, that it's worth rememberin' where it came from.

What the marker says

Among the earliest graveyards in Collin county, this cemetery traces its beginnings to 1852 when Dr. Lillie was buried on land belonging to his uncle William Forman. A Kentucky native, Forman came to Texas about 1850 and bought 640 acres in 1851 from Sanford Beck. Lillie's death prompted a meeting of pioneer settlers to decide the location of a graveyard. The owners of four sections of land that converged together promised equal portions for the cemetery. However, most of the earliest graves are located on Forman land. By the 1870s the Forman Family Cemetery was combined with cemetery tracts purchased by the local Masonic and Odd Fellows' lodges. A group of local women organized the Ladies Mutual Cemetery Association in the 1890s to maintain the site. They beautified the grounds, provided a pavilion and doubled the size of the cemetery during their nearly 40 years tenure. By 1907 adjoining tracts of land were bought by the Mutual Cemetery Association, Woodmen of the World and Knights of Pythias organizations. The Plano Mutual Cemetery Association was formed in 1928 and continues service to the site. Buried here are many early pioneers and their descendants, war veterans, and elected officials. (1996)