DUANE
Duane's take
The marker tells this story, and I'm gonna tell it to you the way it deserves to be told. Pull off the road a minute if you can, because this one asks for your attention. Out here along Cabeza Creek in DeWitt County, there's a piece of ground that goes by two names.
Some call it the Sociedad Cementerio Union Mexicana Cemetery. Others call it Saint Ann Cemetery. Either way, it holds more than five hundred burials, and every one of those souls has a story that runs through the deep roots of this Texas soil.
The land itself has been through a few hands over the years. It was patented to Robert Galletty back in 1841, then passed along to H. Runge and Company and a man named Vachel Weldon.
In the late 1890s, German settlers came in, bought up property, and started working the land. And right alongside them, doing the hard daily labor of farm and ranch life, were Hispanic sharecroppers. Communities need cemeteries.
That's just a truth that follows people wherever they go. Because of segregation, acreage was purchased in 1906 — set aside specifically for the Mexican American and African American population. When that transfer of ownership was witnessed, two men stood present as founding members: F.A.
Hernandez and Telesporo Garza. Their names are in the record because they mattered enough to put there. According to the ledgers, the cemetery was formally established on February 13, 1907.
Now here's a name you ought to know. Rafael Hinojosa. He was listed as one of the original thirty members of the cemetery society, and on July 2, 1907 — just a few months after the cemetery opened — he became the first person buried there.
Think on that for a second. One of the founders. The first to rest.
The early pages of those burial records carry a particular kind of weight. A number of those first graves belong to infants and children, lost to flu epidemics and a lack of medical attention. Small lives.
Real grief. The kind that settles into a community and never fully lifts. And then came May 6, 1930.
An F-4 tornado swept across this region of Texas. Twenty-seven people were killed in that storm. Eighteen of them — eighteen — are buried right here in this cemetery.
You want to understand what a community goes through, you count those headstones and let the number sit with you. In time, veterans joined them. Men and women who served in World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War are all buried on this ground along Cabeza Creek.
Now, the marker notes something that lands quietly but hard. The African American cemetery that shared this history has no surviving burial records. Only seventeen gravestones are still visible.
Seventeen. For an entire community's dead, that's what remains. The absence itself is a kind of testimony.
For generations, the community maintained this cemetery themselves. Kept the grass, kept the memory, kept faith with the people in the ground. Then in 2003, the Saint Ann Cemetery Association was formally established to carry that work forward.
More than five hundred burials. Two names. One long story of people who worked this land, built something out of what segregation left them, buried their children and their elders and their storm-taken and their veterans, and kept showing up to tend the graves.
That's not just a cemetery along Cabeza Creek. That's the record of a people who refused to be forgotten.
What the marker says
Situated along Cabeza Creek, the Sociedad Cementerio Union Mexicana Cemetery, also known as Saint Ann Cemetery, is the final resting place for the Mexican American population of Nordheim. This area was patented to Robert Galletty in 1841 and later sold to H. Runge & Co. and Vachel Weldon. In the late 1890s, German settlers bought property and began to farm the land. Many Hispanic sharecroppers began working for the farm and ranch owners and, therefore, needed a cemetery for burials. Due to segregation, acreage was purchased in 1906 for the Mexican American and African American population. The transfer of ownership was witnessed by two founding members of the cemetery, F.A. Hernandez and Telesporo Garza. According to ledgers, the cemetery was established on February 13, 1907. The cemetery contains more than 500 burials. The first burial is that of Rafael Hinojosa on July 2, 1907. Rafael is listed as one of the original thirty members of the cemetery society. A number of early burials are infants and children who died from flu epidemics and lack of medical attention. Numerous burials are attributed to an F-4 tornado that swept across this region of Texas on May 6, 1930. Eighteen of the twenty-seven people killed in the storm are buried here. In addition, veterans from World War I, World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War are buried here. No burial records exist for the African American cemetery and only 17 gravestones are visible. Throughout the years, the community maintained the cemetery until 2003, when the Saint Ann Cemetery Association was established to care for this historic cemetery.