Letters

Letters to the Departed - Wilks Family

This post completes the story of the decoration of the graves with the letters written to the Wilks family. (If you haven’t read the previous posts, Ginger and I conducted a ritual in early June of decorating each grave with a wildflower bouquet and a letter expressing what we might say to the recipient if we could.)

Thomas,

Of all those lying here, only you and your daughter-in-law, Mary, lived to old age.   When you arrived in Texas in approximately 1866, with your wife and youngest children, you were already a man of 65 or 66.  I wonder what prompted you to make the move.  You had already migrated from Virginia to Iowa, and had been long established in Iowa.  Were you a rolling stone, always looking for new opportunities farther west?  Was your decision related to the aftermath of the Civil War? You left behind adult daughters, married with children, and four deceased children, one of which was a son apparently lost in that War.   Did you expect to ever see your older children again as you said your goodbyes and headed to Texas?  

How did it happen that when death claimed Margaret three years later you laid her to rest in what, at that time, had to be considered the Cagle family cemetery?  Was there some connection between the Cagles and Wilks?  I can find none.  Had the Civil War left the Cagle family hollowed out and dispersed from the area, and the only connection the fact that you were, by chance, the one to settle on or near their old homestead?  With Margaret’s death, did you regret coming to this remote place?  How I wish you could tell me your story.

Margaret,

Did you dream with Thomas of a new start in Texas or did his desire to move break your heart?  Your daughters and grandchildren formed a large family nucleus in Jefferson County, Iowa.  You had buried other children there, and you still had four youngsters to raise - Rebecca almost a young woman at 16, Madison on the cusp of manhood at 15, Newton and Milton youngsters of 12 and 10.  Did you fear for their health and safety on the frontier, or did you eagerly look forward to new adventures? Not yet old, but already past 50, did making a new life on the frontier break you? Three years after arriving in Texas you were gone.  

Your death on 2/24/1869 begins the story of the Wilks in the cemetery that would cease to be known as the Cagle burying ground and become known as the Wilks Family Cemetery.  Rebecca married less than two months after your death, so perhaps she had her sweetheart to support her in her grief.  Thomas and the boys, still teenagers, must have felt your loss acutely.  Your tombstone is lovely and the inscription on it achingly sad,  “Sleep Mother while your children round you weep.”  May your sleep be undisturbed even as this place, so important to the family, is lost.

Newton,

Sixteen when your father died, leaving you and your brothers orphaned,  how did you live?  Did Rebecca take you and your brothers in?  Did you strike out on your own?  Did you try to look after Milton? When you married Mary in 1878 at the age of 23, did your marriage help to make you whole again after losing your parents so early in life?  

Your two eldest sons, and your youngest, a daughter, lived to adulthood, but you and Mary laid three sons to rest in the Wilks Family Cemetery.  Two of those lost boys died as toddlers; one lived to the age of 8.  How did the two of you face the grief of these losses? 

You passed from this earth in your prime at 46 years of age, leaving Mary with two adult sons and a three year old daughter.  You died 13 days after your sister-in-law, Florence, in Feb of 1901.  I can’t help but wonder if some epidemic might have carried you both off.  Perhaps one of the flu epidemics of that time.  Today you lie beside Mary, and your two graves seem to tell a story of a family in decline.  You have a lovely tombstone, solid, enduring, beautifully carved.  Mary’s grave is marked only by the metal marker a funeral home would typically leave behind on a fresh grave.  Your stone reads, “Come Ye Blessed”, and reunited in paradise, you are blessed and certainly well beyond such earthly matters.  

Mary,

Like your father-in-law, Thomas, you lived a full complement of years, passing away at 77.  You have no tombstone and that troubles me a great deal.  I believe that you have living descendants in the area still, though I haven’t succeeded in finding and contacting them.  Perhaps once you are settled in your new home in the Lamaso Cemetery, we can rectify the situation and see you given a proper monument.  You may be resting in peace despite the absence of such earthly trappings, but I am not at peace with you lying in an unmarked grave.

As sad as I feel about the Cemetery being disturbed, in the Lamasco Cemetery, you and Newton and your lost boys will lie together with your older sons and your daughter, the family circle complete.  There is some comfort in that.

Mary’s Grave, photo by Ginger Sisco Cook.

Mary’s Grave, photo by Ginger Sisco Cook.

Fredrick,

Just past your first birthday, you left this world behind.  Your parents were undoubtedly devastated.  And, sadly, they were destined to bear and bury two more sons.  You lie next to your grandmother, the first of your immediate family to be buried in the family plot.  Already three of your little cousins lie beyond your grandfather’s grave, and within three years a little brother will be laid beside you, the two branches of the family extending to the left and right of your grandparents as the death of babies mark the years.  Rest well, Sweet Boy.

Fredrick’s Grave, photo by Ginger Sisco Cook.

Fredrick’s Grave, photo by Ginger Sisco Cook.

Elizia,

Sweet boy of 22 months, the second baby for your mother to bring into the world only to have to kiss goodbye in the space of a few short months, may you rest in eternal peace among your loved ones.

Charles Jefferson,

You left this earth at the age of eight, carried off by illness or accident after having survived the treacherous infant years.  I can only imagine the tears your mother must have shed, and how your father and older brothers grieved.   Your tombstone is graced by a beautifully carved lamb.  Sweet dreams, Little Lamb.

Milton,

Certainly your story is one of the saddest in a family that saw much loss.  After burying three infant sons, you and Betty have a son that lives, though Betty will not.  Less than two years after the birth of this surviving son, she is gone at the age of 34, leaving you with a toddler.  A year later you marry Florence.  She gives you a daughter, Cora, who lives less than three months.  It is more than 8 years later that the two of you are blessed with another child, another daughter.  And yet, Florence will be gone just three years later, at the age of 29.  Thirteen days after Florence’s death your brother, Newton, will die in the prime of life.  You will marry and lose yet another wife, and you will lose your brother Madison, before your own death in 1927.  Your sister, Rebecca, the last of the family who journeyed to Texas in 1866 will pass away in 1940. 

From the beginning of my research, I have been drawn to you, and perhaps that was in the stars, because I have found your granddaughter, Winnie’s child, spoken with her, and come to treasure her.  She will stand as a living witness to the transfer of the family to the Lamasco Cemetery, and, if for any reason she cannot, I will stand for her.  You are not forgotten.

Milton’s Grave, photo by Ginger Sisco Cook.

Milton’s Grave, photo by Ginger Sisco Cook.

Betty,

I imagine you and Milton, newly wed, happy, completely unaware of the sorrow you will face.  You bury your first three children as infants.  You bear a fourth child, and though he will live to adulthood, you will not live to raise him.  Before he is two, you will have passed from the earth. I’ve recently read a book that emphasized for me that though every woman has a unique story, the story of women is somehow universal in that we all share the same fundamental sorrows and joys.  I hope your joys in life were deep and abiding and offered some measure of balance to the losses you had to bear.

Infant Son,

You entered this realm and left it on the same day.  Were you stillborn or did your parents hold your breathing body for a few hours before having to let you go?  Did they get to hear your cry?  Sleep softly, Sweet Spirit.

Noah,

You did not live to walk, to run, to play.  I’m sure you laughed and smiled and delighted your parents.  You cut a few teeth, and perhaps you spoke your first one or two words - you certainly gurgled a few sounds that your eager parents probably took for words.  The joy your parents felt holding their baby boy had to be deep and full.  The grief they felt in losing you had to be staggering.   Rest well, Little Cherub.

Noah’s Grave, photo by Ginger Sisco Cook.

Noah’s Grave, photo by Ginger Sisco Cook.

Emsy,

You never saw your first birthday.  I cannot imagine how broken your parents felt as they laid you to rest beside your brothers, each eagerly welcomed and torn from their breasts in turn.  Their world had to seem devoid of all hope, all joy as they remembered your laughing smile.  May your dreams be forever sweet.

Florence,

You were only 16 when you married Milton, a widower almost twice your age with a very young son.  Was it a love match, or a more practical arrangement?  Today, we might be inclined to look askance at such a match, and wonder if the girl had been taken advantage of, but the times were different then.  At 16 you could have been seen by everyone in the community as a woman grown.  I think of the wonder with which you must have first looked into the face of your infant daughter, Cora.  How you must have raged against fate when she died within weeks.  I wonder that, given your age and the lack of birth control, there were no more children for more than 8 years.  What story lies hidden between the lines - were you and Milton estranged, did you suffer miscarriages, was your health failing?  When Winnie arrived, you must have imagined watching her grow into a women with children of her own, yet you were not given that opportunity.  You passed from this earth while she was still a toddler.  Winnie grew up and had a large family.  I have met your granddaughter, the last of Winnie’s children living today.  I have seen a picture of Winnie as a bride.  I have heard happy recollections of Winnie and her family told by her loving daughter.  I feel attached to you by a thread of kinship, though we share not a drop of blood.  I hope you are smiling your blessing from above as Ginger and I pursue this project.

Cora,

Dear baby, your sojourn on this earth was much too short.  The inscription on your stone says it all, “Earth has one pure spirit less, Heaven one inmate more”.  The medallion on the stone shows a bird in flight.  May you fly high for all of time.

Unknown Grave,

From the Bois d’Arc post that marks your head to the one marking your feet, there is room for four repetitions of my size 8 tennis shoes.  I believe you must be among the many infants and children lying in this grove.  Another testimony to the odds of growing up under frontier conditions.  Are you a Cagle, a Wilks, or from another family altogether?  Did the Cagles lay Martha to rest here because the location was already laid out as a burial place with you the first occupant, or had the place been long used at the time of your burial?  Are you little Alvie Wilks, age 7, burned to death when your clothes caught on fire as you played near the fireplace, and recorded as being buried in the Wilks Cemetery?  There is no other grave that I can find that might be hers, and yet four repetitions of my shoes seems inadequate to describe the grave of a child of seven.   You are our little Unknown Soldier, and we cherish you for it.

Unknown Grave, photo by Ginger Sisco Cook.

Unknown Grave, photo by Ginger Sisco Cook.

Row of Wilks Graves, photo by Ginger Sisco Cook.

Row of Wilks Graves, photo by Ginger Sisco Cook.

Letters to the Departed - Bonham Family

This post continues the story of the decoration of the graves with the letters written to Charity & Louisa Bonham. (If you haven’t read the previous “Letters to the Departed” posts, Ginger and I conducted a ritual in early June of decorating each grave with a wildflower bouquet and a letter expressing what we might say to the recipient if we could.)

The Bonham graves date from Dec, 1865, some fours years and a few months after Susan Cagle was laid to rest. Since we do not know the dates of the deaths of several of the Cagle family members, we cannot say whether the two burial sites were active at the same time or what their relationship, if any, was to one another.

Charity,

Your history is hard to piece together.  Your tombstone declares you to be the wife of David Bonham.  You lie next to the little daughter of John Bonham, the son of a David and Saletha Bonham.  I do not know when Saletha Bonham died, though I do see evidence of her being alive in 1860.  I take you to be David’s 2nd wife, much his junior, as your step-son appears to be only about 5 years younger than you.  I cannot tell how long you and David were married, I cannot find any record of David’s death, and I can find no evidence of children borne by you.  Your marriage might have been a short one, yet clearly at your death you were living with or nearby your step-son, his wife, and his children.  You were carried away just before Christmas in 1865.

How did you come to be buried so close to the Cagle family plot, already well established, and yet separate from it?  Perhaps at that time each family kept a burial plot on their land, rather than the community collectively setting aside a location for a shared cemetery.  Perhaps the Cagle plot was somewhat abandoned - both Martin and Susan Cagle had died, the boys perhaps lost, and Mary, nearing womanhood, might have been living elsewhere with Frances and her husband.  It seems unlikely that the Wilks had yet arrived in the area at the time of your death. 

How is it that, of all the Bonhams, only you and little Louisa lie here?  I will have to let the mystery be.  Rest well.

Louisa,

It appears that your parents and older siblings migrated to Texas from Arkansas sometime after May of 1862.   I am basing that on the record of the birth of your sister, Charity, in Arkansas in 1862, and the record of your birth in Texas in 1864, though your brother John’s obituary states that he came to Texas with his parents in 1865.    If that is the more accurate date, then you made that trip from Arkansas with your family.

You were a bright toddler approaching your 2nd birthday when you left this earth on Jan. 4, 1866, and were laid to rest next to your grandmother, who had died only two weeks before you.  There could have been no joy for your family in this holiday season.   I have been told an old story of your family passing through and leaving the graves there in the woods in their wake as they moved on, but this seems unlikely.  I see much evidence of your parents and siblings in the annuals of Fannin County for years to come.  I have even found a photograph of your brother, John, as an old man.  However, you and Charity do lie here alone, so perhaps there is some kernel of truth in the old story - your family did not put down roots here, even if they did so elsewhere in the County.  

I am told that the two of you will be moved to a Bonham family plot in the Willow Wild Cemetery.  You will be in the bosom of family at last, though I might have wished that you were to be placed in Smyrna with your parents.  It is lovely there, and Willow Wild seems such a big and bustling place compared to your intimate place here among the trees.  May your dreams be sweet wherever you lie.

Bonham Family Gravesite, photo by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

Bonham Family Gravesite, photo by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

Lovely Basket Ginger Made to Honor Charity & Louisa, photo by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

Lovely Basket Ginger Made to Honor Charity & Louisa, photo by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

Story by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

Letters to the Departed - Cagle Children

Today’s post continues the story of the decoration of the graves with the letters written to the Cagle children. (If you haven’t read the previous post, Ginger and I conducted a ritual in early June of decorating each grave with a wildflower bouquet and a letter expressing what we might say to the recipient if we could.)

Marked only by foot stones with initials, there is some guesswork involved in addressing these letters to the Cagle children. Piecing together what is known from various records about the Cagle family with the initials, we are reasonably confident in the identifications, with a couple of caveats. There are two stones that begin with the initial ‘M”. Which is Martha, which Martin? We have assumed that MSC, lying next to Martin Sr, is Martha. Martha and her father were the first family members laid to rest in the Cemetery and died within a span of two years. It seems an acceptable guess that they might lie next to one another. The second caveat is that the SHH letter is pure speculation - we have no data at all on this burial other than that it is included in the Cagle family row, and has a foot stone identical to the Cagle stones. The assumption that SHH died as an infant or small child is based on the absence of any corresponding adult from the records of the family.

In any case, the sentiments expressed are genuinely placed even if the details might be questioned.

Martha (MSC),

Sweet child, carried off by scarlet fever.  Did your little sister, Mary, avoid the illness or did she simply survive it?  Did it rage through the entire family, striking your brothers as well?  I can imagine the care your mother took of you, the prayers she offered for your deliverance, the anguish she felt as she watched the life ebb from you, and the sorrow with which she laid you to rest.  With the possible exception of the unknown grave, you are first inhabitant of the Cemetery.  I wonder how the location was chosen.  Was it simply convenient, was it special to you, or special to your mother?  Did you once play where you now lie?  I will, in any case, think of you at play in the fields of the Lord.

Martin (MVC),

Martin, a strapping boy carried off at the age of 15 or 16.  Your loss must have been a great blow to your mother and siblings.  Another sad addition to the Cemetery, the graves now beginning to form a row.  I wonder how close the Cemetery was to the house the family lived in.  No trace of that house exists today, and no knowledge of where it might have been.  I wonder If your mother was able to walk out in the cool of the early evening and visit with you, your sister, and your father.  Perhaps she sat by your grave and spoke to you, finding solace here among her dead.

Edward (ECC),

A young man cut down in your prime, perhaps a casualty of the Civil War, perhaps dying here in Fannin County before the call of war caught up with you, you lie here in obscurity.  Though as I think about it, it is only obscurity for those of us who walk the Cemetery today.   You were undoubtedly laid to rest lovingly in the bosom of your family.  Though your rest is soon to be disturbed, you will remain surrounded by those who knew and loved you.

John (JHC),

You last appear in the historical records as a young boy of 9 in the 1860 census.  The date of your death we cannot know.  Did your sister, Frances, take responsibility for you and Mary after your mother died and your brothers were called to war?  Did you live to become a young man or did you succumb to a childhood illness?  We must rest content that whatever your earthly history, you now reside with your family in a realm beyond our ken.

SHH,

You are a mystery.  Your position in the Cemetery indicates that you are member of the Cagle family.  That much seems very clear.  I believe you to be an infant or child of Frances Cagle.  Frances married Thomas Hale in 1856, and I am guessing your identity based on the initial of your last name.  Though I can find references in the genealogical record of your parents and several of their children, none of the initials match yours exactly.  Perhaps you died as an infant and disappeared from any official records.  Rest in peace, Little Lamb.

Wilks Cemetery - Making of the Wildflower Bouquets, photo by Ginger Sisco Cook.

Wilks Cemetery - Making of the Wildflower Bouquets, photo by Ginger Sisco Cook.

Wilks Cemetery - Cagle Foot Stone Letters and Bouquets, photo by Ginger Sisco Cook.

Wilks Cemetery - Cagle Foot Stone Letters and Bouquets, photo by Ginger Sisco Cook.

Story by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

Letters to the Departed - Martin & Susan Cagle

There are cemetery traditions that have been followed for generations in both my family and Ginger’s.  In my family we visit the cemetery on the first Sunday in May, decorating the graves, visiting, reminiscing about loved ones that have passed, and sharing the family history and lore with the youngsters.  The day always ends in a big spread at my cousin’s house.  For my generation, it is a day not to be missed.  In early June of this year, Ginger and I decided to pay homage to our friends in the Bonham and Wilks Cemeteries by decorating their graves.  I wrote letters to each person, and Ginger made posies from wildflowers we gathered in the meadows surrounding the cemeteries.  In a series of posts, we want to share with you images of the decorated graves and our letters to the departed.  This initial post will focus on Martin and Susan Cagle.  

Martin,

When you and Susan married, the independent nation of Texas was just a few weeks old.  As the old saying goes, you weren’t born in Texas, but you got here as soon as you could.  Your daughter Martha, your fifth child, was born here in 1845.  You were truly a pioneer.  I think about the life you lived, arriving in a sparsely populated Fannin County, finding the land you would settle, making a home.  Perhaps farming the rich Bois d’Arc Creek bottom lands.  I know life had to be hard, and yet, growing up on a farm myself, I imagine it was rewarding.  Certainly you knew Nature’s beauty and abundance in a way that few have an experience of today.  You owned land, you owned slaves.  You appear to have enjoyed some level of prosperity.  You died young, only 43.  You left behind a young wife and six children, the oldest 14 and the youngest less than 2.  I wonder how you died.  Did an accident befall you, did you waste away from a fever? I think of how grief-struck your family must have been.  How large the hole left in their lives, both practical and emotional.  I think of Susan and the older children struggling to go on without you.  

You were not the first burial in the cemetery.  There is the unknown grave that could have preceded you, and there is the grave that I believe must be that of your little daughter Martha who died in 1850.  But your tombstone holds the earliest recorded death date, 12/11/1852.  You have been resting in peace in this lovely spot for almost 166 years.  You were a slave owner, something that in life would have divided us, but today I wish you nothing but peace in the new home being prepared for you.  May you rest well.

Susan,

Left, at the age of 38, a widow with six children, the oldest no more than 14 and the youngest a toddler, did you regret the move to Texas?  Did you pine for home and family?  Or did you pull your children around you and thrive?  I see you on the Fannin County Tax Rolls in 1858, and as a head of household in the 1860 census, so I know you stayed on the land and carried on.  You & Martin had buried little Martha back in 1850.  By 1860, your eldest daughter, Frances, had married, and you had buried another child, a son, Martin, who died as a teenager.  The other four children were still living with you - Robert, a young man of 23, Edward a lad of 19, Mary blossoming at 13, and John a youngster of 9.  Did any of you have an inkling then that time was running short for you?  Or that a brutal war that would change your family forever was about to break out? By August of 1861, the Civil War had already begun as the children laid you to rest.  You and Martin share a lovely tombstone -  tall, graceful, and richly decorated.  The other Cagle graves have only small slabs with carved initials - no embellishment, no details.  I imagine the children raising the monument to their lost parents, and I hope they were all together to dedicate it, before the eldest boys rode off to war.  Robert is known to have served in the Confederate Army.  Edward was of an age to serve.  Neither appear in the annals of Fannin County after the war, and the grave marked ESC is possibly Edward’s.  John is likely the JHC buried next to you, the date of his death lost to history.  Like Frances, we know that Mary grew up, married, and had children, though, sadly, I can find no living descendent of either of them in this area today.  I think of you as a strong woman in a line of strong pioneering women and I salute you.

Cagle Monument Decorated, photo by Ginger Sisco Cook.

Cagle Monument Decorated, photo by Ginger Sisco Cook.

Wanda Photographing the Decorated Graves, photo by Ginger Sisco Cook.

Wanda Photographing the Decorated Graves, photo by Ginger Sisco Cook.

In our research, we have managed to connect with living descendants of both the Wilks and Bonham families.  We have not been able to identify any living descendants of the Cagle family.  In sharing the following family tree, I hope to add substance to the lives of Martin and Susan, but I also hope that a reader will recognize a name and come forward to help us flesh out their story - to help us make that living connection.

Story by Wanda Holmes Oliver.