Three Oaks (Goerlitz) Cemetery
McDade, Bastrop County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The earliest marked graves on this site were those of infant Peter Goerlitz and two-year-old Emma Goerlitz. The property was primarily a family cemetery until 1893, when Peter Kellermier deeded one acre for burial purposes. The cemetery was long associated with the Catholic church located on its north side, and was known as the Catholic Cemetery. The church declined in the early 1930s; the site became known as the Goerlitz Cemetery because of the number of family members interred there. In 1975 the name was changed to Three Oaks to better represent all those interred here. There are thought to be unmarked graves and lost headstones. Veterans of World War I and World War II also are interred here. Three Oaks Cemetery continues to serve the surrounding area. (1999)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This burial ground began as a family plot—marked first by the graves of two young Goerlitz children—before Peter Kellermier deeded an acre for wider community use in 1893. Long tied to a neighboring Catholic church, it was known as the Catholic Cemetery until the congregation faded in the 1930s. Renamed Three Oaks in 1975 to honor all who rest here, including veterans of both World Wars, it still serves the McDade community.
Why it matters
Rural cemeteries like this map the arc of a settlement's families, faith, and losses, preserving the memory of ordinary Texans across more than a century.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the decades after the Civil War, the rolling farmland of Bastrop County in Central Texas filled with families putting down roots one homestead at a time. This is the country between the Colorado River bottoms and the piney sandhills, and the small community around McDade grew the way so many rural Texas settlements did — around farms, a church, a school, and a burying ground.
The Reconstruction and Gilded Age years that frame the earliest burials here were a time of quiet, hard work rather than headlines. Immigrant and settler families were common across this part of Texas, and surnames like Goerlitz and Kellermier point to the strong German heritage that took hold in the region during the nineteenth century. A family cemetery was often the first permanent mark a household made on the land — more permanent, in the end, than the house or the fields.
By the time the twentieth century arrived, places like this had become the shared memory of a whole neighborhood, holding the losses of Progressive-era and modern America right alongside the pioneers who came first.
People & events
The story here begins with the smallest graves. The earliest marked burials were those of an infant, Peter Goerlitz, and a two-year-old, Emma Goerlitz — a reminder of how fragile early childhood was for rural families, and how a piece of ground could become sacred the moment a family had to lay a child in it.
For years this stayed a family plot. Then, in 1893, Peter Kellermier deeded one acre for burial purposes, opening the ground to the wider community. Because a Catholic church stood on the north side, the place became known simply as the Catholic Cemetery, its identity tied to the congregation next door.
When that church declined in the early 1930s, the cemetery's name drifted to the family with the most kin resting there, and it became the Goerlitz Cemetery. Finally, in 1975, it was renamed Three Oaks — a deliberate choice to honor everyone buried here, not just one family. Among them are veterans of both World Wars, and, almost certainly, others in unmarked graves whose headstones have been lost to time.
Its place in the American story
A cemetery like this is a map of how America actually settled — not in grand movements but in single families choosing a place to stay. The arc traced by these graves, from a private family plot to a shared community ground, repeated itself across thousands of rural corners of the country.
The changing name tells a larger American story too. A burying ground first defined by a church, then by a leading family, then rededicated to represent all who rest there, mirrors how communities themselves grew more inclusive and more conscious of their own history over the twentieth century.
And the presence of World War veterans among ordinary farmers is its own quiet monument. It shows how the great national events of the twentieth century reached even the smallest Texas settlement, and how those who served came home to be buried among the people they had left to defend.
If you visit
Come to a rural cemetery like Three Oaks expecting stillness. These are places to walk slowly and read, letting the dates on the stones sketch the outline of a community across more than a century.
Look for the oldest markers first — the small ones are often the most moving, and they tell you where the story began. Notice the gaps and sunken ground between graves, too; the marker itself notes that there are believed to be unmarked burials and lost headstones, so some of the people here are remembered only by the land.
Watch for the modest military markers that flag the veterans of the World Wars. On a trip through Bastrop County's back roads, a stop like this pairs well with the region's small-town squares and river country — a chance to trade the highway's pace for the older, human rhythm of a place that has been quietly serving its neighbors for well over a hundred years.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Peter Goerlitz
- · Emma Goerlitz
- · Peter Kellermier
Themes & tags
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