Wilke Cemetery at Albert, Texas

Duane's take

The official marker tells this story, and I'm gonna do it justice. Gather 'round, because out here in Gillespie County, even the ground beneath your boots has got a history worth knowing. We're talking about the Wilke Cemetery at Albert, Texas.

And before you ask, yes, Albert is a real place, and yes, it actually has a story behind that name. This community was originally called Martinsburg, but the name that stuck was Albert, named for Albert Luckenbach, who opened a new post office in town in 1892. A post office was no small thing out here in those days.

It meant you were on the map. It meant you were real. Now, the man who set aside the land for this very cemetery was Friedrich August Wilke, Sr., a blacksmith and rancher, a native of Germany who had put down roots deep enough to give a piece of his property over for the community's dead.

He conveyed this land for cemetery use in 1907. Think about what that means. A man decides that this patch of earth ought to hold the people who built this place.

That is a particular kind of generosity. The first burial recorded here was a child, Constantine A. Kleinert, born in 1892 and gone by 1894, reinterred from a ranch that same year the cemetery began.

That small life, reinterred here, is where it all started. Walk through this cemetery today and you'll find interior fencing, Masonic gravestones, and extensive curbing, each one a quiet declaration that someone mattered, that someone was remembered. In 1980, the Wilke Cemetery of Albert, Texas Association formed to make sure all of that remembering keeps on going.

They maintain this burial ground still. A vestige of the Albert community, the marker calls it, a reminder of the area's early pioneers. That's a good word for it.

Vestige. Something that remains when so much else has moved on. But out here, it remains on purpose, tended and true.

What the marker says

This burial ground served the rural community of Albert (originally Martinsburg), which was named for Albert Luckenbach, who opened a new post office in the town in 1892. Blacksmith and rancher Friedrich August Wilke, Sr., a native of Germany, conveyed this property for cemetery use in 1907. The first burial was of Constantine A. Kleinert (1892 - 1894), who was reinterred from a ranch that year. Cemetery features include interior fencing, Masonic gravestones and extensive curbing. In 1980, the Wilke Cemetery of Albert, Texas Association formed. Today, the cemetery association continues to maintain the burial ground, which as a vestige of the Albert Community, serves as a reminder of the area's early pioneers.