White Rose Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, in my own words. Now settle in, because this is one of those stories that starts small, grows slow, and ends up covering forty-five acres of Van Zandt County ground. We're talking about White Rose Cemetery, just outside Wills Point, Texas.

The town itself got its start in the early 1870s, when the Texas and Pacific Railroad came through and a settlement took root. It took the name of William Wills, an early settler who had put up a log cabin and trading post on the Dallas-Shreveport Road nearby. But here's the thing about William Wills.

Before there was a town with his name, before there was a railroad, before any of that, there was a burial. In 1864, Wills was laid to rest on his own family land. That grave, quiet and solitary as it was, turned out to be the very first seed of something much larger.

After Wills was gone, his widow, Mary Ann Phillips Wills, took those eight acres and did something thoughtful with them. She laid the land out in a grid pattern and began selling lots so the surrounding community could have a proper place to bury their dead. By 1874, folks were already calling it the Wills Point Cemetery, and that same year the White Rose Cemetery Association was formed with the specific purpose of maintaining the grounds.

Two names for the same place, for a while. In 1886, Mary Wills made it official in her own quiet way. She retained the family burial plot, the ground where William himself rested, and deeded the rest of that eight-acre graveyard over to the Wills Point Cemetery.

The association kept on working. In 1901, they fenced the grounds and erected a gate with a connecting archway right at the west entrance. Give a place a proper gate, and you're saying something.

You're saying this ground is kept, this ground is honored. Then in 1909, the association obtained a state charter and officially renamed the place White Rose Cemetery. The name finally matched the care being given.

And the cemetery kept growing. Year by year, decade by decade, it spread outward from those original eight acres until, by 1964, it covered about forty-five acres of Texas earth. Today it holds the remains of approximately thirty-one thousand five hundred people.

Pioneer settlers and their descendants. Veterans of conflicts stretching from the Civil War all the way to the Vietnam War. It all traces back to one man, one patch of family land, and one grave dug in 1864.

William Wills probably had no idea what he was starting.

What the marker says

The town of Wills Point was established in the early 1870s on the Texas and Pacific Railroad. It was named for the log cabin/trading post established at a nearby site on the Dallas-Shreveport Road by early settler William Wills. This cemetery began with the burial of Wills on family land in 1864. Wills' widow, Mary Ann (Phillips), set aside eight acres here in a grid pattern and sold lots for community burials. Although the graveyard was known as the Wills Point Cemetery in 1874, the White Rose Cemetery Association was formed that year to maintain the grounds. In 1886 Mary Wills retained the family burial plot and deeded the remainder of the eight-acre graveyard to the Wills Point Cemetery. The White Rose Cemetery Association fenced the grounds and erected a gate with a connecting archway at the graveyard's west entrance in 1901. In 1909 the association obtained a state charter and officially renamed the graveyard White Rose Cemetery. The cemetery was enlarged over the years and by 1964 covered about 45 acres. Among the cemetery's approximately 31,500 burials are many of the area's pioneer settlers and their descendants and veterans of conflicts ranging from the Civil War to the Vietnam War. Sesquicentennial of Texas Statehood 1845-1995 Sesquicentennial of Texas Statehood 1845-1995