Sunshine Cemetery
Corpus Christi, Nueces County, Texas
Marker Inscription
From the late 1800's until the early 1940's, the Sunshine Community encompasses this part of what is now Corpus Christi. The small farming and ranching settlement, also known as encinal, boasted a school, union church, and post office. The sunshine school was in operation from 1887 until 1942, when it was consolidated with the Aberdeen School. Baptist, Methodist, Church of Christ, and other denominations alternated Sunday services at the Union Church. The post office and the cemetery at this site are the only physical remnants of the Sunshine Community. The oldest marked grave in the cemetery, that of Ethel Eva Capeheart, is dated 1903. Tombstones in the Sunshine Cemetery reflect the family names of some of the early settlers who came to the area. John James Parry (d. 1920), a native of Wales, came to Texas in 1872. A farmer and rancher, Parry also preached Baptist services at the Union Church. His wife, Mary Elizabeth (1854-1935), and five of their ten children and buried in the Parry Family plot. The Haney Family section includes the burial site of James Silas Haney (1871-1939), his wife Ella Smith (1882-1962), and seven of their ten children. Other members of the Sunshine Community and their descendants also are buried here.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
From the late 1800s into the 1940s, the farming and ranching settlement of Sunshine—also called Encinal—thrived on this land now within Corpus Christi, with a school, a shared Union Church, and a post office. Congregations of several denominations took turns holding Sunday services, and the school ran until 1942. Today the cemetery and post office are the only physical traces left, its tombstones—Parry, Haney, and others—preserving the names of the Welsh, English, and American families who settled here.
Why it matters
Sunshine Cemetery is the quiet archive of a vanished South Texas community, where immigrant and native-born settlers built a shared civic and religious life on the coastal plains.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · John James Parry
- · James Silas Haney
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Site of Cheston L. Heath School
Corpus Christi, TX
What began in 1896 as a one-year experiment to teach Corpus Christi's Mexican American children grew into a thriving school, gaining a permanent building in 1901 and later named for benefactor Cheston L. Heath. Under longtime principal Rose Dunne Shaw—who ran a soup kitchen for her pupils during the Depression—it educated generations of students until 1968, when they were integrated into other district schools; the site later became the Nueces County Courthouse.
Old Saint Anthony's Catholic Church
Violet, TX
In the early 20th century, German Catholic farm families settling the community once called Land Siding — later Violet — organized their own parish and raised a modest frame building that doubled as church and schoolhouse. Enlarged and crowned with three towers in 1919, it anchored the little farming settlement for decades. When a larger church replaced it in 1952, the old structure was moved and eventually restored as a community museum.
St. John Nepomucene Catholic Church
Robstown, TX
As German and Moravian families settled the Robstown area to farm, Czech-speaking Catholics had no church offering worship in their native language until they bought a former Methodist building in 1924 and named it for St. John Nepomucene, a saint beloved among Czech Catholics. Under Father George Scecina, who led the parish for 49 years, it added a new church, a rectory, a convent, and a school that graduated high-school classes into the 1970s.
St. Paul Lutheran Church and School
Bishop, TX
In December 1911 a small band of Wendish Lutheran families — descendants of a Slavic minority from central Europe — organized St. Paul Lutheran Church in the rural community of Concordia, on land donated by one of their own. From the start their new building doubled as a schoolhouse, reflecting a deep commitment to both faith and learning, and one teacher would serve the parochial school for over forty years. The congregation grew, built larger churches, and eventually relocated to Bishop in the 1960s.