William H. Pate

Desdemona, TX

Serving the frontier community of Desdemona since J. S. and Rosa Jones deeded an acre for a public graveyard in 1880, this cemetery holds pioneer settlers, Civil War and world-war veterans, a physician who served the area for fifty years, and children lost young. When oil gushers surrounded the grounds in 1918, the boom brought sudden wealth—and new residents—to the very families buried among its oaks.

Dublin vicinity, TX

Settlers from Georgia and Alabama reached the Greens Creek area in 1873, clearing farms and quickly organizing schools and churches. In 1880 John W. Moore deeded land to the Baptist church, part of it already holding several graves, and it became the Upper Greens Creek Cemetery. Still tended by an association today, it holds pioneer families and their descendants along with veterans of American wars from the Mexican War through the Korean War.

Desdemona vicinity, TX

This burial ground began when pioneer William Mansker set aside part of his land for a school and community cemetery in the mid-19th century, serving Anglo settlers drawn together by the hardships of frontier Texas. Family clusters like the four Bell children who died in 1877, graves marked only by fieldstones, and the interment of veterans of several wars all testify to the precarious lives of those who built the Alameda community.

Sipe Springs, TX

Named for its abundant live oaks, the Oakland community took root in the early 1860s, and in 1875 circuit-riding Methodist minister H. S. 'Brother' Anglin arrived, building the local church while serving nine congregations nearby. The first burial came in 1891, and the Anglins deeded the church-and-cemetery land to trustees to serve Oakland and the neighboring communities. Now spanning five acres, the cemetery holds the graves of pioneer families and more than forty veterans of World Wars I and II, and it still serves the area today.