A Lonely Little Cemetery in the Countryside of Texas

This week I received a request from http://www.findagrave.com/ to take a picture at a the Orchard Cemetery, Fort Bend County Texas. This is roughly a 30 to 45 minute drive from home. Hubby I loaded up the car with bottles of water, my digital camera and paper to write on.

What a lonely little cemetery in the middle of almost nowhere. The cemetery is located just outside of Orchard, Texas on highway 36 North between Rosenberg Texas and Wallis Texas.

The cemetery is well kept but so dry from the heat. Part of it is sheltered by trees and other graves are out in the open .

The cemetery was established in 1891.The grave stones range from markers from the funeral home with the names scratched into them to larger beautiful headstones with marble slabs that cover the whole grave. There are under 300 graves at this time.

The request was to photograph the Gravestone of Andrew E Quinn 1887 to 1954 and his wife Rosa H 1890 1974

Inscribed on the stone is Asleep in Jesus awaiting the glorious resurrection .

I spent over an hour at the cemetery so have over 100 names to post on http://www.findagrave.com/ as time allows. Will share some of these with you in the future.

Morton Cemetery Richmond Texas Courtland Schley

This is the gravestone of Courtland H Schley Jan 5 1883 .. Feb 11 1911

Courtland was found on www.ancestry.com in the 1910 census. He is listed as a male and living with his parents Henry J and Clara, and he was listed as single Center of his stone is a circle with Women of the World Memorial written.

More of Morton Cemetery Robert & Mary Calder in Texas

This is another grave that I took a photo on my first trip to Morton Cemetery in Richmond Texas. It is of Robert James and his wife Mary Douglas Calder.

Robert James Calder, soldier and public official, was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on July 17, 1810, the son of James H. and Jane E. (Caldwell) Calder. He was raised by his mother's brother, James Peckham Caldwell, after his father's death and moved to Texas from Kentucky in 1832. He joined Stephen F. Austin's army in 1835, took part as a second lieutenant in the battle of Concepción, was made third lieutenant of artillery in December, and accompanied James W. Fannin, Jr., on a recruiting expedition. In 1836 Calder joined the army at Gonzales and was elected captain of K Company, First Regiment of Texas Volunteers, which he commanded at the battle of San Jacinto. He was among those who delivered news of the battle to President David G. Burnet on Galveston Island. Calder received 640 acres of land for his service and was appointed marshal of Texas by Burnet in 1836. In 1837 he was elected sheriff of Brazoria County, a position he held for six years. One source states that "he was Brazoria sheriff during the famous Monroe Edwards contests with Dart and was swindled by Edwards out of about five thousand dollars, fees and responsibilities undertaken, while in charge of imported Africans." He was elected mayor of Brazoria in 1838 and chief justice of Brazoria County in 1844 and 1846. After moving to Fort Bend County, Calder became mayor of Richmond in 1859 and from 1866 to 1869 served as county chief justice. He later practiced law with the firm of Mitchell, Nolan, and Calder. In 1881 he officially unveiled the monument to the memory of those killed at San Jacinto. Calder married Mary Walker Douglass of Brazoria on January 3, 1837; they had six children. He died at Richmond on August 28, 1885. In 1929 the state of Texas erected a joint monument over the graves of Calder and his wife in the Richmond Masonic Cemetery. [Bio: Handbook of Texas Online]

Taking pictures in El Campo Texas at Oaklawn Cemetary

Last Tuesday July 7th I received a request to take a picture of a grave stone at Oaklawn Cemetery in El Campo which is in Wharton County Texas. This was my second request since I joined http://www.findagrave.com/ . The first time I was asked to take a picture, I was not able to get out to the cemetery right away, it was 30 miles away and we were having car trouble. By the time I was ready to go and take the picture someone else had already visited the cemetery and take care of the request. Finally I have another request to help someone get a picture of their ancestor's grave stone.

This cemetery was a good 40 miles away, but hubby agreed to go for a ride after we had taken care of personal business. He is not really into my grave hopping but loves to be with me and I try to not spend to much time at any one time wandering around the cemetery.

The drive was nice but nothing special. I had googled the cemetery name and came up with an address and directions. Off we went. Got to El Campo but never could find the road we were suppose to take. Stopped and asked a couple of people in a truck and they would point us in a different direction. Just as we were about to give up we decided to stop at a gas station. Asked if anyone knew where Oaklawn was, no one really knew. Showed the address to a mail carrier and she says that is a residence area no cemetery there. The address listed with cemetery is the owners mailing address. Not the address of the Cemetery. Good lesson for my next visit. Check out where cemetery really is. Call a phone number if possible. Thanks to the mail carrier she noticed I had a phone number. Why not call the number? I had never noticed this.

Sure enough the sweetest lady answered the phone. Gave me really good directions and even guided me to the grave.

This is a small cemetery in the country. Once we had the right directions it was really easy to find.

When I was given the request they did not know which husband their ancestor had been buried with. This lady was married twice. I told my my new friend at the phone number for the cemetery that I did not know last name on grave stone. I read off the two husband's last name and she says " LANGDON " you will find Elsie there. She was buried with hubby number two. This lady knows her cemetery.

She shared that her husband had started this cemetery in the 1950's. They raised 4 children and put all four through college., one is a lawyer. You could tell she was really proud of this. She is now probably in her 80's and just sold the cemetery in April. Her health is failing and she can no longer go out there to check it , to plot out the graves and everything else she took care of.

Well here I am wandering for a bit, temperature is 100 degrees and sunny. Really hot for sure.

After taking the pictures of the Langdon grave and took pictures of 8 more graves which gives me 11 names to list http://www.findagrave.com/ site.

We had a nice ride home and I had some pictures to load and list on http://www.findagravecom/ . We had a great adventure that day. Not sure if we will be out that way again in the future but if so we know our way to Oaklawn cemetery.