Three Oaks (Goerlitz) Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Three Oaks Cemetery in Bastrop County. Now settle in, because this one starts small, the way the deepest stories often do. Two little graves.

That's where it begins. The earliest marked graves on this site belonged to infant Peter Goerlitz and two-year-old Emma Goerlitz. Two children, two stones, on a piece of ground that would carry names for generations to come.

The property served primarily as a family cemetery for years, until 1893, when a man named Peter Kellermier deeded one acre of land specifically for burial purposes. One acre, set aside formal and legal, opening the ground to more than just one family's grief. For a long stretch of time, the cemetery was closely tied to a Catholic church that stood right on its north side, and folks simply called it the Catholic Cemetery.

Then the church declined in the early nineteen thirties, and the name shifted again. With so many members of the Goerlitz family laid to rest there, people started calling it Goerlitz Cemetery. The land remembered the name of those first two little ones, in its own quiet way.

But names have a way of evolving when a community decides it's time. In 1975, the name was changed to Three Oaks, chosen to better represent all those interred here, not just one family, not just one faith. And here's something that sits heavy if you let it: there are thought to be unmarked graves and lost headstones.

Stories beneath the grass that nobody's written down. Veterans of World War I and World War II are also interred here, soldiers who came home, or didn't come home whole, and found their final rest in this same ground. Three Oaks Cemetery continues to serve the surrounding area to this day.

Two children's graves started it. A whole community carries it forward. That's a lot of living held in one acre of Bastrop County earth.

What the marker says

The earliest marked graves on this site were those of infant Peter Goerlitz and two-year-old Emma Goerlitz. The property was primarily a family cemetery until 1893, when Peter Kellermier deeded one acre for burial purposes. The cemetery was long associated with the Catholic church located on its north side, and was known as the Catholic Cemetery. The church declined in the early 1930s; the site became known as the Goerlitz Cemetery because of the number of family members interred there. In 1975 the name was changed to Three Oaks to better represent all those interred here. There are thought to be unmarked graves and lost headstones. Veterans of World War I and World War II also are interred here. Three Oaks Cemetery continues to serve the surrounding area. (1999)