All alone, on a little gravel road, one mile south of Farm to Market 485,
northwest of Cameron, Texas, in Milam County, is a little cemetery, and three
ghosts. The ghosts of a small white church, its parsonage, and a three room
school house. Only the cemetery remains as a link to their past.
The church was the North Elm Baptist Church, organized for a second time
after being destroyed by fire in 1881. The church was organized by Mose
Price who came there from Alabama in 1876.
It had one room and no bell. The deed for the church was drawn on December
5, 1883.
Mrs. Mary Houston, daughter of Mose Price, was one of the three teachers at
North Elm School for 22 years.
Lucinda Goodnight Fuller joined the church as its first member in 1876. She
was the niece of Charlie Goodnight, founder of the Goodnight-Loving Trail
and the person who was the basis for the main character in "Lonesome Dove."
Lucinda was the great grandmother of the Three Sisters who made this quilt.
The Cemetery was deeded on November 5, 1886 from the Francisco Antonio
Delas Rios Survey. The first grave in the cemetery was that of J. G. Lagrove,
who died June 5, 1870, making the cemetery 127 years old. The church, the
school, and the parsonage have been gone for many years.
In April of 1941, the last pastor of the North Elm Baptist Church, Bro. Johnny
Cole, resigned and the church became inactive. The school was torn down,
and the students transferred to nearby Yarrelton school. Yarrelton too, faded
into obscurity when the railroad passed it by. Mrs. Houston bought the church
and school at auction. She sold the lumber to her brother, Wright Price Sr.,
and he built his house with it.
When the first trustees of the cemetery died and the others moved to town to
live with their children, the cemetery was left unattended to grow over.
Years later the North Elm Cemetery Association was re-established with new
trustees who gather donations to keep up the cemetery. The association has a
yearly all day picnic and business meeting the Saturday before mother's day
weekend. The children who attended North Elm School and their children
continue to be buried in the little cemetery, which is kept up by donations.
As one of the trustees said, "The piece of ground looks like any piece of ground
looks." The dirt road is now gravel. The Cemetery is all that's left to preserve
the memory of those who went to the church and school.
|