Prairie Grove Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Prairie Grove Cemetery, out in Collin County. Now, every community worth its salt eventually gets a piece of ground set aside for the ones who've gone on ahead. The Aleo community had just such a place: Prairie Grove Cemetery.

From the late 1800s all the way through the middle of the 20th century, this burial ground served the people who carved their lives out of that corner of Collin County. The cemetery has its roots tied to the Prairie Grove Baptist Church, which set aside the land specifically to be used for burials. That's a congregation looking after its own, in this life and the next.

The oldest known grave here dates to 1895, which means somebody was laid to rest in that ground before the century turned, before the world got loud and fast, when Aleo was simply a place where people lived and worked and died and were remembered. Now, if you know one name out of the 20th century, you probably know Audie Murphy. World War II hero.

Audie Murphy lived in this area for a time, and his mother and his grandparents are buried right here in Prairie Grove. You stand at those graves and you feel the weight of that. Whatever thunder he made out in the wider world, his people are here, in quiet Collin County ground.

And then there's 1927. A tornado came through near the town of Nevada, and the victims of that storm; they're interred here too. Prairie Grove received them.

That's what a community cemetery does. It holds the ones taken suddenly, the ones taken slowly, the heroes' kin, and the storm's. The Aleo community itself is a piece of 19th century rural Texas that time has largely moved past.

But Prairie Grove Cemetery remains, a vestige, the marker calls it, and that word is exactly right. A remnant. A reminder that Aleo was real, that people put down roots there, raised families, built a church, and dug a cemetery on the prairie.

Some places you remember because of what was built. Some you remember because of what was kept. Prairie Grove is the kind that keeps.

What the marker says

The Prairie Grove Cemetery served residents of the Aleo community from the late 1800s until the middle of the 20th century. The burial ground has ties to the Prairie Grove Baptist Church, which set aside land to be used for burials. The oldest known grave in the cemetery dates to 1895. World War II hero Audie Murphy lived in the area for a time, and his mother and grandparents are buried here. Victims of the 1927 tornado that came through nearby Nevada are also interred here. A vestige of rural settlement of the 19th century, the cemetery serves as a reminder of the pioneer community of Aleo. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2005