Stanford Chapel Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Stanford Chapel Cemetery, out in McLennan County. Now settle in, because this one starts with a journey and ends with something that just keeps going. Back in 1862, a Methodist minister by the name of Reverend Thomas Stanford packed up his wife and family and came out of Arkansas into Texas.

Pioneer country. The kind of move that takes something out of you and puts something else back in. He wasn't alone in that settling.

The E. R. Barcus family came alongside them, and together those two families did what frontier people do when they mean to stay.

They established a school, a church, and a cemetery. Three things that say, in no uncertain terms, we are not leaving. Now, the Stanfords had a daughter, Martha, and she had married a man named Thomas Richey.

In 1875, Martha and Thomas Richey donated five acres of land for the graveyard. Five acres, freely given. And that same year, 1875, the first recorded burial took place on that ground.

The land had found its purpose. But here's where the story gets a little heavy, as stories about the dead often do. Years passed.

The graveyard fell into neglect. Whatever tending had been done, it stopped. The grass grew tall over the quiet, and the markers stood alone without much looking after.

Then, in 1962, somebody looked up and decided that was not acceptable. The graveyard was restored. And if restoration was the turning point, then 1965 was the follow-through, because that's when a cemetery association was formed, dedicated to maintaining the site.

A formal promise, made by people who understood what it meant to let a place like that go. Stanford Chapel Cemetery still serves the community today. Named for a minister who came a long way to put down roots, kept by the hands of those who came after.

Some things, it turns out, are worth the tending.

What the marker says

This cemetery is named for the Reverend Thomas Stanford, a pioneer Methodist minister who moved to Texas from Arkansas in 1862 with his wife and family. They, with the E. R. Barcus family, established a school, church and cemetery. The Stanfords' daughter and son-in-law, Martha and Thomas Richey, donated five acres of land for this graveyard in 1875. The first recorded burial occurred in 1875. After years of neglect the graveyard was restored in 1962, and by 1965 a cemetery association was formed to maintain the site. The cemetery continues to serve the community. (1997)