Sunshine Cemetery

Duane's take

The way the marker at Sunshine Cemetery tells it, here's how Duane's passing it on to you. Out here in what is now Corpus Christi, there was once a whole world that most folks have never heard of. From the late 1800s until the early 1940s, the Sunshine Community stretched across this very ground — a small farming and ranching settlement that also went by the name Encinal.

And don't let the word "small" fool you. This place had a school, a union church, and a post office. That's not a crossroads.

That's a community. The Sunshine School opened its doors in 1887 and kept them open until 1942, when it was consolidated with the Aberdeen School. Fifty-five years of children learning to read and cipher and look out at a South Texas sky.

The Union Church, meanwhile, ran on a kind of holy rotation — Baptist, Methodist, Church of Christ, and other denominations taking turns at the Sunday pulpit. Nobody had to fight over the building. They just shared it.

There's something almost radical in that, if you think about it long enough. But communities don't last forever. By the early 1940s, the Sunshine Community had faded into what is now Corpus Christi.

The post office is gone. The school is gone. The church, gone.

What remains — the only physical remnants, the marker says — are the post office site and this cemetery. And the cemetery, well. It remembers.

The oldest marked grave belongs to Ethel Eva Capeheart, dated 1903. The stone was set and the grass grew over it and the years piled up and the community changed around her, but that marker stayed. The tombstones here carry the names of early settlers who staked a life on this South Texas ground.

John James Parry — who died in 1920 — came all the way from Wales to Texas in 1872. A farmer, a rancher, and a man who also preached Baptist services at that Union Church. He wore several hats, John James Parry did.

His wife, Mary Elizabeth, was born in 1854 and died in 1935. Five of their ten children rest beside them in the Parry Family plot. Not far away, the Haney Family section holds James Silas Haney, born 1871, died 1939, and his wife Ella Smith, born 1882, died 1962.

Seven of their ten children are buried alongside them. Ten children. Ten children, twice over.

Two families, each raising ten kids on this farming and ranching land, and half of each family never left — still here, still in this ground, still part of the Sunshine Community even after the Sunshine Community stopped existing in any other form. That's the thing about a cemetery. It doesn't consolidate with anything.

It doesn't get absorbed into the city. It just stays, holding the names, holding the story, waiting for someone to stop and read the stones. You're standing at the end of a world that kept on living anyway.

What the marker says

From the late 1800's until the early 1940's, the Sunshine Community encompasses this part of what is now Corpus Christi. The small farming and ranching settlement, also known as encinal, boasted a school, union church, and post office. The sunshine school was in operation from 1887 until 1942, when it was consolidated with the Aberdeen School. Baptist, Methodist, Church of Christ, and other denominations alternated Sunday services at the Union Church. The post office and the cemetery at this site are the only physical remnants of the Sunshine Community. The oldest marked grave in the cemetery, that of Ethel Eva Capeheart, is dated 1903. Tombstones in the Sunshine Cemetery reflect the family names of some of the early settlers who came to the area. John James Parry (d. 1920), a native of Wales, came to Texas in 1872. A farmer and rancher, Parry also preached Baptist services at the Union Church. His wife, Mary Elizabeth (1854-1935), and five of their ten children and buried in the Parry Family plot. The Haney Family section includes the burial site of James Silas Haney (1871-1939), his wife Ella Smith (1882-1962), and seven of their ten children. Other members of the Sunshine Community and their descendants also are buried here.