HistoricSiteMarkers
Early Republic

Rambie-Lewis Family Cemetery

Somerset, Bexar County, Texas

Marker Inscription

This family cemetery, consisting of three graves, is a physical reminder of the hardships faced by 19th century pioneer families. Aaron Rambie, a Pennsylvania native who came to Texas about 1848, married a neighbor, Ginsey Ann Lewis, In 1854. When Ginsey died in 1862 at the age of twenty-seven, she was buried here on land owned by her father, Levi Lewis, Jr. Lewis's son, warren, died in June 1863 at the age of one year and was also buried here. Aaron and Gensey's eight-year-old daughter, Mary Abigail, died in July 18633 and was buried next to her mother. (1991)

Erected by Texas Historical Commission

The Story

Three graves on a corner of one family's land tell the quiet, hard arithmetic of frontier Texas life. Aaron Rambie, a Pennsylvanian who reached Texas around 1848, married his neighbor Ginsey Ann Lewis, but she died at twenty-seven and was buried on her father's land in 1862; a Lewis infant and the couple's eight-year-old daughter followed within a year. Small family burial grounds like this dot the Texas countryside, marking places where settlement meant burying children as often as breaking ground.

Why it matters

Pioneer family cemeteries preserve the human cost of westward settlement, reminding us that the expansion of 19th-century America was measured in ordinary lives and losses.

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Related people

  • ยท Aaron Rambie
  • ยท Ginsey Ann Lewis

Themes & tags

Westward ExpansionFrontier HistoryMemorial

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