Seaton Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Out on the Bell County roads, you'll find a place called Seaton Cemetery, and behind that quiet ground there's a story worth slowin' down for. The community that grew up around here was known as Lost Prairie-Seaton.

Think about that name for a second. Lost Prairie. Settlers arrived in the 1880s, Czechoslovakian immigrants who looked out over this Texas land and decided, whatever else might be true about it, they were going to make something of it.

And they did. At one time, Lost Prairie-Seaton had a post office, a school, a store, and a saloon. A full life, in other words.

The kind of place where you could mail a letter, learn your letters, buy your goods, and at the end of the day, sit down with your neighbors. Then, in 1896, a man named Tomas Ondrasek died. We don't know much more than that from where we're standing, but his passing set something in motion.

Charles Motl, Sr., donated two acres of land so that the community would have a proper cemetery. A place to lay their own to rest. The very next year, 1897, the Seaton National Cemetery Association was formed, organized, official, a community taking care of its own in the most permanent way.

Over time that organization was renamed the Seaton Cemetery Association, but the purpose never changed. Today, one thousand one hundred and fifty burials rest in that ground. Among them, veterans of World War I, World War II, and the Korean conflict.

People who left this little corner of Bell County and went out to face things most of us can barely imagine, and some of whom came back, and some of whom came back only in memory. The cemetery, the marker tells us, continues to serve the community. That's a quiet line, but sit with it.

From two donated acres and one man's death in 1896, to more than a thousand souls and counting. Lost Prairie found something, after all.

What the marker says

The community of Lost Prairie-Seaton was settled in the 1880s by Czechoslovakian immigrants, and at one time contained a post office, school, store and saloon. Charles Motl, Sr., donated two acres of land for a community cemetery following the death of Tomas Ondrasek in 1896. The Seaton National Cemetery Association was formed in 1897, and was eventually renamed the Seaton Cemetery Association. Among the 1,150 burials are those of veterans of World Wars I and II, and the Korean conflict. The cemetery continues to serve the community. (1997)