Shillerville Cemetery
Victoria, Victoria County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The community of Shillerville began when several Czechosovakian families came to this area in 1894. Among the first settlers was Jan Shiller, for whom the farm community was named. The first burial, that of Rosalie Balcar Jirasek, took place in 1897 on land given by Josef Lesikar and wife, Terezie Marek Lesikar. The graveyard was originally known as the Lesikar or Bohemian Burial ground. Additional land was donated in 1954 which increased the size of the cemetery to one acre. Some of the early grave markers are inscribed in Czech. (1986)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Shillerville took root in 1894 when several Czech families settled this stretch of Victoria County, naming the farm community for early settler Jan Shiller. The cemetery's first burial, in 1897, was Rosalie Balcar Jirasek, laid to rest on land given by Josef and Terezie Lesikar — which is why it was first known as the Lesikar or Bohemian Burial Ground. Some of the oldest stones here are still inscribed in Czech, a quiet record of the immigrants who built the place.
Why it matters
It preserves the memory of Central European immigrants whose farming communities helped shape the cultural fabric of nineteenth-century Texas.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
The marker describes the families who came here in 1894 as Czechoslovakian. It helps to know that Czechoslovakia did not exist as a country until 1918. When these settlers left home, the Czech lands of Bohemia and Moravia belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The families spoke Czech and carried Czech customs, and that heritage is what the marker is honoring.
Czech immigration to Texas had started decades earlier, in the mid-1800s. By the 1890s there was an established network of Czech farm communities in the south-central part of the state. Letters home and word of mouth brought new waves of families looking for land they could own, something that was hard to get in the crowded countryside of Central Europe.
Victoria County, in the coastal plains, offered that land. In the 1890s rural Texas was still made up largely of small farm settlements that grew around a church, a school or a cemetery, and many were named for the families who settled them first.
People & events
The community took its name from Jan Shiller, one of its first settlers, which is why this farm settlement is called Shillerville. He and the other families who arrived in 1894 started building homes, breaking ground for crops, and creating the small institutions every rural community needed.
One of those was a burial ground, and the first person buried here was Rosalie Balcar Jirasek, in 1897. A first burial is always a sad milestone, and in an immigrant community it also marks a change: families far from their home villages now had graves in Texas soil and ties that would keep them here.
Josef Lesikar and his wife, Terezie Marek Lesikar, gave the land for the graveyard. For years it was called the Lesikar or Bohemian Burial Ground, names that recorded both the donors and the homeland of the people buried here. In 1954 more land was donated, bringing the cemetery to one acre, so the community was still looking after it more than half a century after that first burial.
Its place in the American story
The story most Americans hear about immigration centers on crowded cities. Many immigrant families, though, went straight to farmland, and in Texas, German and Czech farmers built a strong rural culture of their own. Shillerville is one small piece of that larger movement.
Cemeteries like this one are among the most lasting records those communities left. Farmhouses are rebuilt, schools consolidate, and small settlements fade from the map, but gravestones stay. The early stones here that are inscribed in Czech show exactly who these people were and which language they spoke at the most important moments of their lives.
Texas still has a strong Czech heritage in its food, music, churches and family names. Places like the Lesikar burial ground help explain where that heritage came from, one family and one acre at a time.
If you visit
This is a quiet, working community cemetery, so visit with respect. Stay on paths where they exist, don't touch fragile stones, and keep in mind that families still have loved ones buried here.
Look for the older markers inscribed in Czech. You don't need to read the language to appreciate them. Names, dates and the shape of the words show you a community that kept its mother tongue on this side of the ocean. Look also at how the styles of the stones change from the oldest burials to the more recent ones, which shows a family's slow shift from immigrant to Texan.
The cemetery pairs well with a wider drive through South Texas's Czech and German farm country, where painted churches, kolache bakeries and old dance halls tell more of the same story. Go slowly. Much of this history is in small places that are easy to drive past.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Jan Shiller
- · Rosalie Balcar Jirasek
- · Josef Lesikar
- · Terezie Marek Lesikar
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Goldman Ginnery
Victoria, TX
Adolph Goldman, a German immigrant who reached Texas in 1859 and served in the Civil War, settled in Victoria in 1865 and built a wide-ranging business empire. From the late 1880s he ran a cotton gin at this site, expanding it with rail access, warehouses, and new equipment until it averaged 3,000 bales a season. His sons carried the operation forward until fire destroyed the facilities in the early 1940s.
Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church
Victoria, TX
German settlers around Victoria were worshiping in one another's homes as early as the 1840s, and in 1851 they formally organized the first Lutheran congregation in the county under the Rev. William Strobel. The church went on to support missions in neighboring communities and a ministry at Indianola, and held all its services in German until English crept in beginning in 1914. Its long history mirrors the story of German immigration that reshaped the culture of south Texas.
Pela House
Victoria, TX
Erected in 1884, the Pela House blends a conservatively Greek Revival frame—balanced bays, a center passage, pedimented windows, and columns—with fashionable Victorian touches like geometric railings on its two-tiered porch. It was the home of Silvain Pela, a French immigrant, and his Swiss-born wife Elizabeth Meyer Pela, who raised ten children within its walls. The Pela family and their descendants held the house for more than a century. It was recorded as a Texas Historic Landmark in 1998.
Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church
Victoria, TX
Assigned to St. Mary's in Victoria in 1872, the Rev. Jean Baptiste Teitien saw the need for a parish serving the area's German-speaking Catholics and traveled to his native Germany to raise building funds. He returned with enough to complete a church, leading the first services for Our Lady of Lourdes in 1875. After fire destroyed the original building, the present structure replaced it in 1924.