Pleasant Grove Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Out here in Mills County, there's a cemetery that goes by the name Pleasant Grove, and the story of how it came to be is quieter than most, but it stays with you. It's named for the live oaks banking Simms Creek.

Just picture that, a grove of old live oaks leaning over a creek, and men who had been shooting at each other not long before, sitting down in the same shade. Because that's exactly what happened. Pleasant Grove was settled by Civil War veterans from both the North and South.

Men who had worn different colors, who had buried friends in different ground, came here and built something together. That detail alone is worth a moment of quiet. One of those settlers was Tom Berry, born in 1844, who came from Alabama.

His farm sat right up against this cemetery. And the cemetery, it opened the way so many do, with grief. The first burial was Tom's daughter Mary, born in 1872, gone by 1876.

She was the beginning of this place. After her came the others, early settlers and their descendants, folded into the ground over the years, more than four hundred graves in all, and many of them unmarked. Names lost to time.

Pleasant Grove Methodist Church stood nearby, and a community school too, so this wasn't just a burial ground, it was the heart of a whole community. For a long while, donations were what kept the site going. No formal structure, just neighbors looking after neighbors, the living tending to the resting.

That held until 1969, when a cemetery association was finally organized. And then in 1970, church trustees added fifteen acres to the burial ground, making sure there'd be room. Over four hundred graves.

Many unmarked. But the live oaks are still there along Simms Creek, same as they ever were, keeping watch over all of it.

What the marker says

Named for the live oaks banking Simms Creek, Pleasant Grove was settled by Civil War veterans from both the North and South. The farm of Tom Berry (1844-1926) of Alabama adjoined this cemetery, opened with the burial of his daughter Mary (1872-1876). Pleasant Grove Methodist Church and a community school also stood nearby. Donations maintained the site until a cemetery association was organized in 1969. Church trustees added 15 acres to the burial ground in 1970. In over 400 graves, many unmarked, lie early settlers and their descendants.