While I’ve written about Walker’s Creek cemetery before, I was compelled to write again, because our Master Naturalist event champion, Linda Jo, asked us to go out and observe at a Milam County cemetery this week. This place is so beautiful, I’m always happy to visit.
I decided to do two things, survey what’s living and growing in the area for iNaturalist and see what I can learn about the area’s history from the tombstones. I’ll post the nature stuff on the Master Naturalist blog when it’s done.
As I looked around, I saw the graves of those founders and their descendants. The Jinks family put in new stones and is all fancy.
The Cages and Walkers had some cool old stones. I love how many stones throughout the cemetery have kind words on them.
Another thing I notice on the older headstones is that there are hands in them, like the one at our house, which has a hand pointing up. Here are a couple with a handshake and hands reading a book (Bible, I assume).
Hands under a curtain. 
Another mother 
My favorite of all. 
This is a dove
My favorite stone with an inscription was this much more recent one. Way to go, Sonny.
I do enjoy humor from the families. This is so cute cute
Lots of the gravestones looked like trees. They are Woodmen of the World stones, bought with burial insurance. When I was a kid, I thought it was an organization for guys like my grandfather, who was a woodsman (forest surveyor).
As I looked around, I noticed a few things. One is that the people buried here aren’t German or Czech, like we see in the surrounding area. The names are mostly English, Scots, etc.
Even the people I know who are buried here have English names. The late sheriff Green, his son, and eventually his wife, the Greenes, are here.
This is a great example of what I saw all over the cemetery, where people do sweet things like stack rocks or arrange rocks in patterns. I thought it was so sweet.
The rocks hold up better than fake flowers, for sure. But, some of the graves are well tended. My former neighbor, Elaine, gets visited often. It helps that her son now lives across the street in her old house.
Another thing I noticed was that any tomb cover on a grave was all cracked up. I’m not surprised, seeing how much the soil moves around here. The Jinks grave above shows this. Here’s another example.
This cemetery is in a beautiful spot, surrounded by woods and little ponds. I enjoyed my time here so much.
Remember the sign at the beginning that talked about a church? Most cemeteries have a church associated with them. There’s not one here now, but there was one across the road, here.
I’d noticed the sign before, since we drive by here often.
Only today did I see the sign, which appears to be on the old entry. Aha.
I saw so much of historical interest here, right down the street! I look forward to writing up all the plants and animals I encountered.
The Hermits' Rest 
There’s some unintended humor in the grave of a family named Laywell.
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I thought of that , too, Steve.
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