DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Zimmerman Cemetery, out there in Calhoun County. Now, every good cemetery has a story buried in it, and this one starts with a name chiseled in stone back in 1852 — Georchim Wedig, the earliest marked grave in the Zimmerman Cemetery. That's the anchor.
Everything else grows out from there. Fast forward to 1863, and Wedig's daughter Katherine is getting married. Her groom is a man named John Gonzales — and here's where this little plot of Texas ground starts connecting to something a whole lot bigger and stranger.
John Gonzales, born in 1838, had arrived in Indianola back in 1858 alongside a man named Joseph Mendez. And what brought them to Indianola? Well, the U.S.
Army had imported a shipload of camels. Camels. In Texas.
As part of an experiment in frontier transportation. Gonzales and Mendez came over as caretakers for that very shipload. Both of them were natives of Spain, and both of them, when their days were done — Mendez in 1904, Gonzales in 1918 — were laid to rest right here in this same graveyard.
The cemetery served the communities of Magnolia Beach and Indianola, and it takes its name from the family of August Zimmerman. Now, the marker originally called Zimmerman a son-in-law of John Gonzalez — but a correction was issued, and the record was set straight: August Zimmerman was the son-in-law of Joseph Mendez. Even the marker itself needed a second look, which feels right somehow, for a place where history has a way of asking you to slow down and read it again.
Camels on the Texas coast, a Spanish caretaker buried beside the man he sailed with, and a graveyard that's been keeping all of it quiet since 1852. The ground out here remembers more than most people think to ask about.
What the marker says
The earliest marked grave in the Zimmerman Cemetery, that of Georchim Wedig, is dated 1852. In 1863, Wedig's daughter Katherine married John Gonzales (1838-1918), who had come to Indianola in 1858 with Joseph Mendez (d. 1904) as a caretaker for a shipload of camels imported by the U.S. Army as part of an experiment in frontier transportation. Native of Spain, both Gonzales and Mendez are buried in the graveyard. The burial ground, which served the communities of Magnolia Beach and Indianola, takes its name from the family of August Zimmerman, a son-in-law of John Gonzalez. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836-1986 Supplemental plate (1989) Correction: The last line of the Zimmerman Cemetery historical marker should read "son-in-law of Joseph Mendez."