St. Paul Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, friends, and I'm just the voice passing it along. Out in Ellis County, there's a piece of ground that's been holding memory longer than most folks around here have been alive. It starts back in 1875, when the first graves were already being dug into this soil.

Six years later, in 1881, a man named William Gardner made it official; he deeded this site to the Mountain Creek School community. That's the kind of act that plants roots. The tract held those graves, it kept its doors open as a public cemetery, and right next door, land was set aside for a school.

A little community was taking shape, one deed at a time. Then comes 1894, and W.S. Fife and his wife, L.M., gave adjacent land for a church.

After that, the whole property became known as St. Paul Church and Cemetery. A school, a church, a burying ground; everything a community needs to be born, to gather, and to grieve.

And there was grieving to be done. The burials here include pioneer area settlers, people who carved a life out of this Texas soil from the very beginning. But among those markers, there are also the names of several victims of the 1918 influenza epidemic.

That epidemic didn't spare many corners of this country, and it didn't spare this one either. You stand in that cemetery and you feel the weight of that year. The school held on until the 1940s, when it finally closed, as so many small community schools did.

The land was later conveyed to the cemetery association, which means the ground has stayed what it always was at its core: a place for the community to keep its people. From 1875 to today, St. Paul Cemetery has been doing the quiet, serious work of remembrance.

Some places earn their permanence. This one did it grave by grave.

What the marker says

In 1881 William Gardner deeded this site to the Mountain Creek School community. This tract, which contained graves dating from 1875, remained in use as a public cemetery, and adjoining land was set aside for a school. After W.S. Fife and his wife, L.M., gave adjacent land for a church in 1894, the property became known as St. Paul Church and Cemetery. Burials here include those of pioneer area settlers and several victims of the 1918 influenza epidemic. The school closed in the 1940s, and the land was later conveyed to the cemetery association. (1983)