Rodgers Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, every good piece of Texas ground has a story underneath it; sometimes literally. This particular patch of earth out in Kennedale carries the name Rodgers, and to understand why, you've got to go back to a Georgia-born man named Thomas F.

Rodgers, born in 1835, who packed up his life and came to Texas from Kansas in the late 1850s with his wife Mary. She was an Adams before she was a Rodgers, born in 1842. They didn't come empty-handed, and they didn't arrive timid.

Thomas built himself into a successful farmer and stock raiser, the kind of man who understood land the way some folks understand a language: fluently, quietly, with deep respect. He served in the Confederate Army during the Civil War, and when that was done, he came back to what he knew: the soil. Eventually, Thomas F.

Rodgers became one of Kennedale's leading landowners. That is no small thing to say about a man who'd started somewhere else entirely. He lived until 1906.

Mary lived until 1912. And part of the land Thomas had built his life on was set aside to become a burial ground; this burial ground, bearing his name. Now, most of the folks resting here are Rodgers family members, which is fitting enough.

But here's the thing that stops you when you learn it: the earliest marked grave in the whole cemetery doesn't belong to a Rodgers at all. It belongs to L.G. Patterson, born in 1883, gone in 1884, a child who never saw his second year.

He was a son of the Rodgers' early neighbors. A baby, laid to rest on a neighbor's land, and that is how this cemetery begins; not with the man whose name it carries, but with a small life, and the kind of neighbor who made room for grief. Some stories end with a legacy.

This one starts with one.

What the marker says

Georgia native Thomas F. Rodgers (1835-1906) and his wife Mary (Adams) (1842-1912) came to Texas from Kansas in the late 1850s. A successful farmer and stock raiser, Thomas Rodgers later served in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. Eventually he became one of Kennedale's leading landowners. Part of his property was later set aside for this burial ground. Although most of the interments here are for Rodgers family members, the earliest marked grave is that of L.G. Patterson (1883-84), a son of the Rodgers' early neighbors.