Rambie-Lewis Family Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm passing it along straight. Out here in Bexar County, there's a small patch of ground holding three graves. Three.

That's the whole of the Rambie-Lewis Family Cemetery, and if you think that number sounds modest, just wait until you hear who's in it. Aaron Rambie came down to Texas from Pennsylvania, arriving around 1848. He put down roots, found a neighbor he admired, a woman named Ginsey Ann Lewis, and in 1854 they married.

Life on the Texas frontier in those years was no gentle thing, and this little cemetery tells that truth plainly. Ginsey died in 1862. She was twenty-seven years old.

She was laid to rest here on land belonging to her father, Levi Lewis, Jr. Then, in June of 1863, Levi Lewis Jr.'s son Warren died. One year old.

Buried here too. And then, that same year, in July of 1863, Aaron and Ginsey's daughter, eight-year-old Mary Abigail, died and was buried right next to her mother. Three graves.

A mother, a baby boy, a little girl. All gone within about a year of each other, all tucked into the same corner of her father's land. The marker calls this place a physical reminder of the hardships faced by nineteenth century pioneer families.

I'd say that's putting it quietly. Sometimes the land holds the whole story, and all you have to do is stop and read it.

What the marker says

This family cemetery, consisting of three graves, is a physical reminder of the hardships faced by 19th century pioneer families. Aaron Rambie, a Pennsylvania native who came to Texas about 1848, married a neighbor, Ginsey Ann Lewis, In 1854. When Ginsey died in 1862 at the age of twenty-seven, she was buried here on land owned by her father, Levi Lewis, Jr. Lewis's son, warren, died in June 1863 at the age of one year and was also buried here. Aaron and Gensey's eight-year-old daughter, Mary Abigail, died in July 18633 and was buried next to her mother. (1991)