Focus on Texas: Cemeteries

Our favorite photos this month reflect the beauty, sadness and emotional layers found in graveyards

By Ashley Clary October 2011

Shirley Jarred

Kim Luensmann, a Guadalupe Valley Electric Cooperative member, spotted an array of flowers covering the Christ Lutheran Church of Elm Creek cemetery in New Berlin near Seguin.

CoServ Electric member Pepper McCarty sent this shot of a stranger in Dallas-Fort Worth National Cemetery during Memorial Day weekend. Wanting to respect his privacy, she stayed a discreet distance away. The man symbolizes paying respect to those who gave all, McCarty says.

Some tombstones in the Terlingua Cemetery in far West Texas date to the early 1900s. Thanks to Bluebonnet Electric Cooperative member Jeff Heintschel for taking the photo, and to his wife, Karen Heintschel, for sending it in.

More than a century after a never-to-be-forgotten hurricane, a simple epitaph tells a tragic story. Pedernales Electric Cooperative member Dan Noack sent this image taken in Old City Cemetery in Galveston.

Lisa Flugrath, a Pedernales Electric Cooperative member, sent us this view of the Chisos Mountains as seen from the Terlingua Cemetery.

United Cooperative Services member Patricia Locke found this angel tucked inside a pocket of bluebonnets in Pony Creek Cemetery in Erath County.

Josie Drenner snapped this silhouetted angel at a cemetery in Fayetteville. Drenner’s mother, Maria Stein, is a member of Fayette Electric Cooperative.

Bryan Texas Utilities member Tammy Meadors took this shot of the historic Terlingua Cemetery one evening during her April 2011 motorcycle trip to the Big Bend area.

“I was glad that I had my camera in the vehicle when I happened upon this cemetery alive with the abundance of wildflowers waving in the breeze,” Pedernales Electric Cooperative member Gary Ott said of this cemetery he found in Poth.

Bluebonnet Electric Cooperative member Steve Galloway found this cross-bearing child in a Lockhart cemetery.

CoServ Electric member Jim Krizmanic snapped this cold, beautiful shot of Walnut Grove Cemetery near his home.

Grayson-Collin Electric Cooperative member Linda Littrell pondered over this lonely tombstone in Cherry Mound Cemetery, which shows 1883 as the date of death. “How big was the oak tree it is leaning against when this person was buried, if it was there at all?” she asks.

Taken in the private Smart Cemetery in Williamson County, near Florence, this toppled headstone allowed for the added texture of water and oak leaves. Thanks to Pedernales Electric Member Tanya Katzenmeyer for sending it in.

A Star Trek lover boldly goes to the great beyond: Victoria Owens, a CoServ Electric member, says she enjoys documenting Southern tradition examples of placing items loved by the deceased on their graves. This shot was taken at Cemetery Hill in Carrollton.

While cemeteries are places of sadness, places to mourn and places to remember, they are also places of eerie beauty and mystery. Our favorite photos this month reflect those emotional layers that one can experience, whether it is to remember a lost friend and comrade, to speculate on the life of a victim lost to the Great Storm in Galveston in 1900, or to marvel at the beauty of a forgotten, crumbling graveyard remembered only by time. Thank you for sharing nearly 200 beautiful photos with us.

Recipe Contest

October 2011

This article appeared in the October 2011 issue

Are you a co-op member?

Don't ask again