Pleasant Grove Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'll tell it to you. Somewhere out in Kaufman County, in the Combine area, a family put down roots, and eventually, put down something more permanent than that. James Monroe and Permelia Ann Mathis, she born a Brizendine, came out this way in about 1870.

Didn't come alone, either. Family was already settled here waiting on them. James and Permelia brought twelve children into this world, which is its own kind of Texas-sized undertaking.

But not all twelve made it to adulthood. The one who didn't that weighs heaviest on this story was a little girl named Harriet. Eight years old.

Born 1864, gone by 1873. And when they laid her to rest, they were laying the first stone, so to speak, of what would become Pleasant Grove Cemetery. The earliest burial.

The one who started it all, without meaning to start anything at all. Now, life keeps moving even when grief says otherwise, and by 1879 James and Permelia were still building something here. They conveyed one adjacent acre; deeded it over; for a Pleasant Grove Schoolhouse.

That little acre turned out to carry more weight than just lessons. It became an early meeting place for Point View Baptist Church and for Pleasant Grove Church of Christ. One acre doing the work of a whole community.

But time has a way of reshuffling things. The school consolidated. The churches moved on.

And when they did, the cemetery quietly expanded into that adjoining acreage, reclaiming the ground, you might say, the way land does. Then came 1985, and the Pleasant Grove Cemetery Association formed up with one purpose: to preserve this final resting place of pioneers and generations of their descendants. That's the word the marker uses: pioneers.

People who came out here, built something, buried their heartbreaks, and left enough behind that strangers more than a century later would think it worth protecting. Little Harriet Mathis, eight years old, set something in motion in 1873 that's still being tended to today. That's not nothing.

That's everything.

What the marker says

James Monroe and Permelia Ann (Brizendine) Mathis came to the Combine area in about 1870, joining family already settled here. The couple had 12 children but not all lived to adulthood; eight-year-old Harriet (1864-1873) became the earliest burial in Pleasant Grove Cemetery. In 1879, James and Permelia conveyed one adjacent acre for Pleasant Grove Schoolhouse, which also became an early meeting place for Point View Baptist Church and Pleasant Grove Church of Christ. After the school consolidated and the churches moved, the cemetery expanded into the adjoining acreage. Pleasant Grove Cemetery Association formed in 1985 to preserve this final resting place of pioneers and generations of their descendants. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2017