DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, every cemetery's got a story. But Washington Cemetery, sitting there in Harris County, has got layers — layers of names, of nations, of secrets, and of stubborn people who refused to let the dead be forgotten.
Pull up a chair. It started with the Deutsche Gesellschaft von Houston. Founded in 1875, this German Society set about doing what organizations do when a community puts down roots: they thought about the end.
In February of 1887, they purchased a piece of property — outside the city limits at the time — from the heirs of John Lawrence and Thomas Hart. They called it the German Society Cemetery. Twelve-space family lots went to Society members for ten dollars.
The public could buy in for twenty-five. Practical folks, these Germans. Now, some of the headstones here show birth dates reaching all the way back to 1800, and death dates as early as 1855 — reinterred persons, brought to rest in this ground after the fact.
But the earliest known burial? That happened right at the beginning. March 31, 1887.
A little girl named Pauline Ottilie Zeitler. Three years old. The ground barely broken on this place, and already it was asked to hold something tender.
Over the years, the cemetery gathered the full sweep of human experience. At least fifteen citizens of the Republic of Texas are buried here. Immigrants from more than twenty nations lie at rest in this one patch of Houston earth — twenty nations, under one sky.
Eighteen lots are owned by fraternal, labor, or veteran groups. And more than three hundred veterans, from nine different wars, are interred within these boundaries. Nine wars.
From the Black Hawk War of 1832 all the way to Vietnam. More than a hundred and thirty-five of them served on one side or the other of the Civil War — Confederate and Union alike, sharing the same quiet. Among the more than seventy-six hundred souls buried here — with more added each year, the marker notes — there's one story that stops you cold.
Sarah Emma Evelyn Seelye, born Edmonds, also known as Franklin Thompson. She served in the Federal Army from 1861 to 1863, serving as a man. And she wrote a book about it.
That's what the marker says, and sometimes the marker says enough. Now. The name.
In 1918, with World War I grinding across Europe and anti-German sentiment running hot across America, the German Society Cemetery was renamed. Washington Cemetery. The place didn't change.
The people in the ground didn't change. Just the name on the sign — and the reason behind it tells you something about how history presses down on even the quietest places. The last charter for the cemetery expired in 1947.
After that, the superintendent's widow and her housekeeper tried their best to maintain it. They did not have the resources. And slowly, the years did what years do when nobody's watching.
By the 1970s, Washington Cemetery was badly overgrown — the marker calls it jungle-like growth, and you get the feeling that's not an exaggeration. But here's where the story turns. In 1977, a group called the Concerned Citizens for Washington Cemetery Care — the CCWCC — was founded.
They came in, cleared away that jungle, and cared for the cemetery for the next twenty-two years. Twenty-two years of showing up. And in 1997, the CCWCC became the first group in the entire state of Texas to be legally granted the authority to restore, operate, and maintain a historic cemetery under a 1995 Texas law.
First in the state. Then, in 1999, that authority was transferred to the adjacent Glenwood Cemetery. More than seventy-six hundred people.
Twenty-plus nations. Nine wars. One three-year-old girl in the cold ground of March 1887.
And a handful of concerned citizens who decided that none of it should be swallowed up by vines and forgetting. Washington Cemetery's still there. Still receiving.
The marker says more are added each year. Some stories don't end — they just keep going.
What the marker says
The Deutsche Gesellschaft von Houston, founded in 1875, established the German Society Cemetery in February 1887 by purchasing this property, then located outside the city limits, from the heirs of John Lawrence and Thomas Hart. Twelve-space family lots were sold to Society members for $10 and to the public for $25. It was renamed Washington Cemetery in 1918 due to anti-German sentiment during World War I. Though headstones of reinterred persons show birth dates as early as 1800 and death dates as early as 1855, the earliest known burial is that of three-year-old Pauline Ottilie Zeitler, on March 31, 1887. As least 15 citizens of the Republic of Texas and immigrants from more than 20 nations lie at rest here. Eighteen lots are owned by fraternal, labor, or veteran groups. More than 7600 persons are interred here, with more added each year. Also buried here are more than 300 veterans of nine wars, from the Black Hawk War of 1832 to Vietnam, including more than 135 Confederate and Union veterans. Sarah Emma Evelyn (Edmonds) Seelye, aka Franklin Thompson, is noted for writing a book about her service as a man in the Federal Army, 1861-63. After the last charter expired in 1947, the superintendent's widow and her housekeeper tried to maintain the cemetery, but they did not have the resources needed. By the 1970s, it was badly overgrown. Concerned Citizens for Washington Cemetery Care (CCWCC) was founded in 1977, cleared away the jungle-like growth, and cared for the cemetery over the next 22 years. In 1997, CCWCC became the first group in Texas legally granted the authority to "restore, operate, and maintain a historic cemetery" under a 1995 Texas law; that authority was transferred to adjacent Glenwood Cemetery in 1999. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2012