Oaklawn Cemetery
Somerville, Burleson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Dating to 1900, this graveyard was first called the Somerville and Lyons Cemetery. Land was purchased by J. W. Lauderdale to establish a cemetery upon the death of his two-year-old son Charles on November 6, 1900. The name was changed to Oaklawn Cemetery in 1913. Among the more than 2000 burials are 22 Civil War veterans, 20 children between 1900-1905, and victims of a typhoid fever epidemic in 1903. The construction of the dam at Somerville in 1963 caused 16 people to be reinterred here from other graveyards. The cemetery is still in use. (1996) (Historic Texas Cemetery medallion added 2002)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This Burleson County cemetery began in 1900 when J. W. Lauderdale bought land to bury his two-year-old son, and was renamed Oaklawn in 1913. Among its more than two thousand graves are 22 Civil War veterans, a cluster of children who died in 1900–1905, and victims of a 1903 typhoid epidemic. When the Somerville dam was built in 1963, sixteen people were reinterred here from other graveyards.
Why it matters
Its rows record the everyday tolls of small-town Texas life—epidemic, child mortality, and the aging of the Civil War generation—in a single burial ground.
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Themes & tags
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