DUANE
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Duane's take
Here's what the official marker has to say, and I'll do my best to do it justice. The Berachah Rescue Society, let that name sit with you a moment. Berachah.
It carries weight, and the story behind it carries more. It was organized in 1894, down in Waco, by a man named Reverend J. T.
Upchurch, born in 1870, who had set his mind on one particular cause: the protection of homeless girls and unwed mothers. Now that's not a cause that made you popular in every parlor in Texas at the turn of the century. But Upchurch wasn't building a parlor.
He was building something else entirely. Nine years after founding that society, he opened the Berachah Industrial Home right here on this ground. Ten buildings rose on this site; ten.
There was space to live, space to work, and there was a print shop, because Upchurch intended to make some noise. That print shop put out a publication called the Purity Journal, and friend, they were not shy about the name. Now the home wasn't just walls and windows.
It became a place where lives were gathered in from the edges. And with life, eventually, comes loss. The cemetery here was first used in 1904, for the burial of a resident named Eunice Williams.
More than eighty graves eventually came to rest on this ground. Eighty souls who passed through these gates and never left. The home itself closed in 1935, but the story didn't end there.
Upchurch's daughter, Allie Mae, and her husband Frank Wiese took up the work, running the site as an orphanage until 1942. One family, one patch of North Texas earth, and decades of people who had nowhere else to turn. That's what's buried here; and that's what's worth remembering.
What the marker says
The Berachah Rescue Society was organized at Waco in 1894 by the Rev. J. T. Upchurch (b. 1870) for the protection of homeless girls and unwed mothers. Nine years later he opened the Berachah Industrial Home at this site. Ten buildings were located here, including a print shop for publication of the "Purity Journal". The cemetery, which contains more than eighty graves, was first used in 1904 for the burial of Eunice Williams, one of the residents. The home closed in 1935, but the site was used until 1942 as an orphanage run by Upchurch's daughter Allie Mae and her husband Frank Wiese. (1981)