Union Grove Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker says about Union Grove Cemetery, out in Van Zandt County. Back in 1844, two settlers named William McBee and Adam Sullivan put down roots and established the Union Grove community. McBee didn't stop there.

He built and operated the first corn mill in all of Van Zandt County, and before long, Union Grove had grown into something real: a Baptist Church, a school bearing the McBee name, and the kind of community that puts down roots just as deep as those big oaks and cedars you'll find there today. Then came 1880, when a man named Charles Rufus Peery donated land on a hill overlooking the surrounding countryside, and Union Grove finally had a proper burial ground. The earliest interment in that cemetery is Peery's own mother-in-law, Mary Ann Hindman Henson.

Think about that for a moment. The man gave the land, and the first soul laid to rest there was family. There's something in that.

Now, that hill has been receiving the community's dead ever since. Dozens of veterans rest there, soldiers from the Civil War, from World War I and World War II, from Korea and Vietnam. Generation after generation, different wars, different worlds, same hillside.

Same oak and cedar trees standing watch. And the Union Grove Cemetery Association has been tending to all of it, active since the 1940s, making sure that hill stays dignified and cared for. Some places hold more history than they let on at first glance.

This is one of them.

What the marker says

Settlers William McBee and Adam Sullivan established the Union Grove community in 1844. McBee built and operated the first corn mill in Van Zandt County, and Union Grove grew to include a Baptist Church and the McBee School. Charles Rufus Peery donted land for a community burial ground in 1880; the earliest intermenet is Peery's mother-in-law, Mary Ann Hindman Henson. The cemetery, sited on a hill overlooking the surrounding countryside, has many large oak and cedar trees on its grounds. It is the final resting place for dozens of veterans of the Civil War, World War I, World War II, and the Korean and Vietnam Wars. The Union Grove Cemetery Assocaition, active since the 1940s, cares for this historic graveyard.