Sunny Point Cemetery

Duane's take

The way I tell it, I'm drawing straight from the official marker record, so let's see what Sunny Point has to say for itself. Out here in Hopkins County, there's a piece of ground that holds more than just the quiet. It holds names.

It holds time. And it all starts with a deed. In September of 1881, a man named A.J.

Weathers, also recorded as Withers, signed over this property for cemetery and school purposes. Two uses, one parcel, one signature. And once that ink dried, the land got to work.

The first known burial at Sunny Point Cemetery is that of Mary W. Brasher, who died in 1882. Her husband, E.H.

Brasher, is buried here too. Side by side in a place that had barely begun. After Mary, others followed.

Several generations of prominent community families made their way into this ground. The Evans family. The Bryants.

The Callans, the Romans, the Wilsons. Name after name layered into the soil of Hopkins County. And among them, veterans of American conflicts going all the way back to the Civil War.

Men who came home, or didn't come home whole, and eventually came here. Now just west of the cemetery stood the Sunny Point School, which played a vital role in the community for many years. Schools have a way of anchoring a place, giving it reason and rhythm.

That school eventually consolidated into the Cumby Independent School District, its chapter folded into something larger but not forgotten. What keeps this cemetery alive today, and I mean that in every sense, is the people who still show up for it. Residents and descendants of those buried here formed a cemetery association to manage what became a perpetual care burial ground.

Every May, they gather for a meeting. Decades of Mays. Decades of showing up.

You walk through Sunny Point now and read those vertical stones, those curbed plots, those features worn smooth or standing sharp, and you are reading the story of the people who once called this place home. Not a chapter. The whole book.

What the marker says

In September 1881, A.J. Weathers (Withers) deeded this property for cemetery and school purposes. The first known burial at Sunny Point Cemetery is that of Mary W. Brasher, who died in 1882. Her husband, E.H. Brasher is also buried here. Several generations of prominent community families, including the Evans, Bryant, Callan, Roman and Wilson families, are interred here, as are veterans of American conflicts dating to the Civil War. The Sunny Point School, which was west of the cemetery, played a vital role in the community for many years. It later consolidated into the Cumby Independent School District. Residents and descendants of those buried here formed a cemetery association to manage the perpetual care burial ground. Members hold meetings each May, a decades-old tradition. Today, the cultural heritage found among the verical stones, curbed plots and other features at Sunny Point Cemetery chronicles the families and individuals who once called Sunny Point home. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2003