Valley Spring Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Valley Spring Cemetery, up there in Llano County. Now settle in, because this hilltop has been keeping its own kind of record since before most of Texas was even properly introduced to itself. It started in 1867, when two young women named Martha Epperson Eaker and Hattie Phillips, daughters of pioneer settlers in the area, were laid to rest on that rise.

The community had already taken root around them, and the ground received what the ground always receives. Burials continued, quietly, steadily, the way things do in a place that endures. Then in 1877, the Epperson family made it official, donating land for, and I love this phrasing, the benefit and convenience of San Fernando Valley.

Practical, yes. But there's something touching about calling a cemetery a convenience. By 1889, the trustees had acquired another acre, and the deed they signed referred to it plainly as the old graveyard west of the Valley Springs.

Already old by then. Already carrying weight. That same year, 1889, a physician named Dr.

W. Y. Fowler arrived at Valley Spring to begin his practice.

The marker tells us he was born in 1860 and died in 1935, and that he put in a forty-six-year run doctoring in Llano County. He acquired the surrounding ranch in 1897, and he provided additional land for the cemetery. The man who tended the living helped make room for the departed.

Now here's where that hilltop gets quiet in a particular way. More than a hundred graves in that cemetery are marked only with a rock, or an unlettered stone. No name.

No date. Many are believed to be those of young children. You walk past them and you understand, without needing to be told, what frontier life asked of families.

And then consider this: forty headstones in that cemetery record a birthdate prior to Texas statehood in 1846. Forty people buried there who came into this world before Texas was even Texas. Veterans of the Civil War, World War I, and World War II rest there too.

The old graveyard holds a long account. For a time, maintenance of the place fell to volunteers, and that kind of arrangement has a way of fading. But in 1994, the Valley Spring Cemetery Association was formally organized, and things resumed with purpose.

Water was piped to the site. Trees and plants were added for beautification. The work of care, recommitted.

The marker itself dates to 1996, and what it leaves you with is this: that old graveyard west of the Valley Springs, as the deed once called it, is still serving the families of Valley Spring. Since 1867, it has never really stopped.

What the marker says

This hilltop cemetery has served the local community since 1867 when Martha Epperson Eaker and Hattie Phillips, daughters of pioneer settlers in the area, were buried here. Burials continued, and in 1877 the Epperson family donated land for the "benefit and convenience of San Fernando Valley." Cemetery trustees acquired another acre in 1889, the deed referring to the "old graveyard west of the Valley Springs." Renowned pioneer physician Dr. W. Y. Fowler (1860-1935), who began his 46-year Llano County practice at Valley Spring in 1889, acquired the surrounding ranch in 1897 and provided additional land for the cemetery. More than 100 graves in this cemetery are marked only with a rock or unlettered stone; many are believed to be those of young children. Forty headstones record a birthdate prior to Texas statehood in 1846. Veterans of the Civil War, World War I, and World War II also are buried here. Cemetery maintenance, dependent on volunteers, resumed with the formal organization of the Valley Spring Cemetery Association in 1994. Improvements include water piped to the site, and many trees and plants added for beautification. The "old graveyard" continues to serve the families of Valley Spring. (1996)