Stockdale Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker at Stockdale Cemetery has to say, and friend, this one starts the way the best stories often do, with a stranger. Before the Stockdale Cemetery got its start in the 1870s, folks in this part of Wilson County were burying their dead the old way: private family graveyards, tucked on home ground, keeping the departed close to kin. That's how it was done.

Then, about 1873, something happened that changed everything. A young man, nobody's relative, nobody's neighbor, nobody anybody could point to and say, that's one of ours. He was thrown from his horse and killed.

Just like that. A stranger in a strange stretch of Texas, and now he needed a place to rest. Now here's where the story turns on a single act of decency.

A man named Dr. T. M.

Batte gave one acre of land right here at this site so that young man could have a proper burial. One acre, offered up for a stranger. And once the ground was opened, it stayed open.

Stockdale citizens have been using this burial ground ever since. The cemetery grew as the town grew. Additional acreage was purchased in 1881, and again in 1904.

Then in 1938, an area resident named Paul Ballard donated an acre of land, set aside for anyone who didn't have a family plot and needed a place for burial. Seems the spirit of Dr. Batte had a way of echoing forward through the years.

The earliest marked grave here belongs to Sallie A. Pope, dated 1873. And the names that followed hers read like the founding rolls of Stockdale itself.

John R. King, the town's founder, is buried here. So is Martin West, the first schoolteacher.

War veterans rest here too, and so do the victims of the flu epidemic that swept through after World War I. That epidemic left its mark on communities across the country, and Stockdale was no exception. The women of Stockdale were not about to let any of those graves fall to ruin.

In the early 1900s they formed an organization dedicated to caring for the gravesites. That spirit of tending and keeping carried on until 1965, when the Stockdale Cemetery Association was formally organized. More than a hundred years of Stockdale life, all of it gathered here in one place.

A stranger thrown from his horse, one doctor's gift of an acre, and a community that decided nobody ought to be left without ground to call their own. That's the Stockdale Cemetery, and it's still servin' the people of this area today.

What the marker says

Before the Stockdale Cemetery was begun in the 1870s, most burials in the area took place in private, family graveyards. About 1873, however, a young man who was not related to any of the local settlers was thrown from his horse and killed. To provide a place for his burial, Dr. T. M. Batte gave one acre of land at this site, and the burial ground has been used by Stockdale citizens since that time. Additional acreage was purchased in 1881 and 1904, and in 1938 area resident Paul Ballard donated an acre of land for use by anyone who did not have a family plot and needed a place for burial. The earliest marked grave in the Stockdale Cemetery, that of Sallie A. Pope, is dated 1873. Many early settlers are buried here, including the town's founder, John R. King, and the first schoolteacher, Martin West. The cemetery also contains the graves of numerous war veterans and victims of a post-World War I flu epidemic. The women of Stockdale formed an organization in the early 1900s to care for the gravesites, and in 1965 the Stockdale Cemetery Association was formally organized. In use for more than 100 years, the Stockdale Cemetery continues to serve the residents of the Stockdale area.