Wheeler Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Wheeler Cemetery in Wilson County. Now, some stories begin with triumph, with land claimed and futures bright. This one begins differently.

The year is 1863, and a woman named Maniza, David Wheeler's second wife, dies in childbirth. The infant, Lela, follows shortly after. That first loss, that double grief, is what consecrates this ground.

That is how Wheeler Cemetery comes to exist. David Wheeler and his brother John E. Wheeler were working men rooted to this stretch of country.

They operated a grist mill on the nearby Cibolo Creek, and they'd also constructed a brick-making kiln out there. Men building things, leaving marks on the land. But the deepest mark, as it so often goes, was the one carved by sorrow.

Over the years, more families found their way into this ground. The Butlers, who married into the Wheeler family, are interred here alongside the Wheelers themselves. Neighboring families, all of them part of that same hard-won settlement along Cibolo Creek, back when that creek ran through what the marker plainly calls a wild frontier.

Now here's the part that ought to make you think. All of that history, all those names and that grief and that kinship, it got forgotten. The cemetery fell into neglect.

It took until 2008 for the Wheeler-Butler Cemetery Association to form and take up the work of maintaining it again. Some places hold on quietly, waiting to be remembered. This one waited a good while.

Today, the burial ground stands as a record of the families who planted themselves along the Cibolo when the frontier was still untamed, starting with one man's grief in 1863, and a little girl named Lela who never got the chance to see what it all became.

What the marker says

Also known as Wheeler-Butler Cemetery, this family graveyard was first used in 1863 when David Wheeler's second wife, Maniza, died in childbirth, followed shortly by the infant, Lela. David and his brother, John E. Wheeler, operated a grist mill on the nearby Cibolo Creek; a brick-making kiln was also constructed. Besides the Wheelers, members from neighboring families, including the Butlers, who married into the Wheeler family, are interred here. In 2008, the Wheeler-Butler Cemetery Association formed to maintain the graveyard, which had been forgotten and neglected. Today, the burial ground remains a record of families who settled the area when Cibolo Creek was still a wild frontier.