DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to honor every word. One mile west of where you're rollin' right now, there's a three-acre patch of West Texas ground that has been holdin' stories since about 1903. This is Stiles Cemetery, out in Reagan County, and if you think a cemetery can't stop you cold — well, friend, give this one a minute.
The land belonged to early settlers G. W. and Lizzie Stiles when the plot was first established. Simple enough beginning.
But what got buried there over the years is about as full a summarizing of frontier life as you're likely to find anywhere in this state. Cowboys who died in accidents out on the cattle range. A veteran of the Spanish-American War.
Victims of shootings. Victims of rattlesnake bites. Victims of epidemic dysentery.
The marker doesn't dress that up, and neither will I. The frontier asked a lot, and a lot of people paid everything they had. But here's the line that gets me — and it should get you too.
The marker says most of the people resting there were pioneers of steady habits and quiet lives. Steady habits. Quiet lives.
Out here, in this country, that alone was no small thing to pull off. Now, the cemetery had already been in use for many years when, in 1920, a man named J. D.
Wagner deeded that three-acre plot over to the county. And J. D.
Wagner — the marker makes a point of mentioning this — was an adventuring man who lived for years alternately in Texas and in South America. I don't know what the South American chapters looked like, and the marker doesn't say, but a man who split his years between Reagan County and South America and then quietly handed a frontier cemetery to the county before moving on again... that's a life with some pages missing that I'd purely love to read. Steady habits and quiet lives on one side.
An adventuring man on the other. And all of them, one way or another, ending up part of the same three acres, one mile west of here.
What the marker says
(One mile west) Established about 1903. Site is on land then owned by early settlers G. W. and Lizzie Stiles. Plot summarizes much frontier history, as it holds graves of cowboys who died in accidents on cattle range; one Spanish-American War veteran; victims of shootings, rattlesnake bites, epidemic dysentery. Most were pioneers of steady habits and quiet lives. Already in use for many years, the 3-acre plot was deeded to county in 1920 by J. D. Wagner, an adventuring man who lived for years alternately in Texas and in South America. (1970)