DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm gonna pass it along to you. Out here in Waller County, there's a patch of ground that holds the whole arc of a community — the hopeful beginning, the quiet ending, and something in between that a storm nearly swallowed whole. This is the site of St.
Mary's Catholic Church and Cemetery, and the story starts the way so many Texas stories do: with people coming from a long way off looking for a place to put down roots. The first of many Czech immigrants to settle this area purchased land here in 1891 — land sold by a Galveston developer by the name of E. H.
Fordtran. Just one year later, in 1892, four Czech families came together and founded St. Mary's Catholic Church.
Four families. That's not a crowd — that's a conviction. By 1893, the ground they'd gathered on had already received its first recorded burial.
His name was Antone Blinka, and he was laid to rest on land donated by Frank Divin, Senior. After that, the Rev. A.
Laska formally established the site as a Catholic cemetery, and in 1895 the church built a sanctuary on four adjoining acres. Four acres. Something solid.
Something meant to last. And for a while, it did. Then came 1900.
Now, if you know anything about Texas and the year 1900, you already feel that sentence land. The marker calls it the devastating storm, and it's not wrong to pause on that word — devastating. The community faltered.
That's the marker's word: faltered. Not vanished overnight, but weakened, shaken, people scattered or gone. The church held on for decades more, but in 1947, it closed.
What the storm started, time finished. And yet — and here's the part I want you to hold onto — the cemetery didn't just get left behind. In 1977, St.
Martin de Parres Church in Prairie View took over the care of that ground. Antone Blinka, the four founding families, everyone resting there — they're still looked after. Some stories don't end.
They just change hands.
What the marker says
The first of many Czech immigrants to settle this area purchased from Galveston developer E.H. Fordtran in 1891. Four Czech families founded St. Mary's Catholic Church in 1892. The first recorded burial here, on land donated by Frank Divin, Sr., was that of Antone Blinka in 1893. The Rev. A. Laska established the site as a Catholic cemetery and in 1895 the church built a sanctuary on four adjoining acres. The community faltered after the devastating storm of 1900. The church closed in 1947. St. Martin de Parres Church in Prairie View took over the cemetery's care in 1977.