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New Corn Hill, dying corn field. |
| City limits. The presences of “old” and “new” towns in Texas can often be explained by the coming of the railroads. According to online sources, much of Corn Hill got absorbed into Jarrell, Texas, when the new railroad completely bypassed the town in 1909, but enough people wanted to keep the name so they moved a bit north and formed New Corn Hill. Strangely, even though New Corn Hill is still an active, albeit tiny, town, more information exists about Corn Hill. |
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New Corn Hill is the sort of place you can stop in the middle of the road and take photographs with no worry of causing a traffic snarl. |
| New Corn Hill is in a cluster of towns in Central Texas that were formed by Czech and German Settlers. The Moravian Hall was dead on the 4th. |
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So was this roadhouse.
Technically, I am unsure if this was in New Corn Hill proper. At times it was hard to tell exactly where we were. We wandered through New Corn Hill, Theon and Walburg before we understood we were in three different towns.
We visited the Holy Trinity Cemetery in New Corn Hill. It sits behind one of the more imposing churches in the area. Since we could not find Corn Hill, we decided to check out this church and the cemetery behind it. |
The Holy Trinity Catholic Church. |
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Sign outside the church. |
| This house and the abandoned cars are just up the way from the church. |
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The view directly across the street from the church. |
| The entrance to the cemetery is very humble. |
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The gravestones in the forefront were the two things you saw first when entering the graveyard, immediately to the left. One was too weathered for me to be able to make out much. Since I am a rank amateur when it comes to this sort of thing, I have no desire to do a rubbing or otherwise touch stones, statues or monuments until I know I will do no harm.
According to the Williamson County, Texas Digital Cemetery Project, there are 658 people buried at Holy Trinity Cemetery, but it felt much smaller in person. The oldest grave belongs to Theresia Schwertner, who died in 1868. |
| I’m sure the pictures will do justice to the heat and hard scrabble nature of this cemetery, but two people walking around managed to stir up all the dust you see in this picture. And it is dust – nothing remotely paranormal happened in this cemetery. |
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With the entrance of the cemetery as a landmark, this is the back, left of the cemetery. |
| More of the back left. Clearly this is the older part of the cemetery. |
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The front right. |
| More of the front right. |
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The inscription on the tombstone that this angel stands atop is eroded but this particular angel is still standing. In the right hand, the angel holds a flower. The left arm is what gives me pause. I suspect that this angel never held anything because it doesn’t look like anything broke off. So why is its hand in the air? Angels, in cemetery symbology, can mean different things. A flying angel means rebirth, or ascendance into Heaven. Angels can also represent protection of the tomb or grave. Perhaps that is why this angel seems to have such a defensive pose, but when that defensive pose is combined with a flower offering, it seems odd. |
| This angel has not fared so well. This picture affected me strangely once I learned the symbology of angels in graveyards. It almost looks like she fell in the process of defending the grave, fist in the air. Interestingly, the angel is not behind the grave where it must have stood. She’s behind Anna Sayer’s grave and there was no place on her near-obelisk sized gravestone to have housed such an angel. |
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Anna Sayer’s tombstone is very ornate and involved. Because the shaking hands near the top do not appear to have any gender specificity, this is likely a symbol for a welcome into heaven or a farewell to the living. If the hands had the appearance of being male and female, they would be a symbol of marriage. (Though they could be masculine and feminine and to my amateur eye, I cannot tell the difference). Hier ruhet in tiefem schlumer, using unreliable online translators, roughly translates into Here rests in eternal sleep. |
| Some of the gravestones/obelisks had pictures of the deceased. |
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In Czech, otek means father and matka means mother. The rest of the stone is too eroded for me to read. It’s very touching that their faces and mother and father lasted longer than anything else on the stone. |
| Clement and Genevieve Karkosa. Both Clement and Genevieve were very good looking people in their day. The flowers in the center of the stone are roses, and while roses tend to symbolize romantic love, their presence on the grave for siblings could be just for decoration. However, several sources indicate that since roses had no thorns in the garden of Eden, their presence on gravestones may indicate a return to an innocent state with the Lord at death. |
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Their gravesite was one of the better tended and sported this lovely bench. |
| Julia and Franz Tschoerner. Mutter and Vater means mother and father, respectively, in German. I do not have a good command of German but online translators tell me that: schlumere = slumber, sanft = gentle, du = you, gatte = husband.
I was not able to translate unvergeslicher and if anyone knows that it or this entire phrase means, please let me know. I am unsure what the flowers engraved on the tombstone represent, mainly because I cannot visually identify the flowers. Initially, I thought they were evening primroses, a symbol of eternal love, but there is one more petal than one generally sees when this flower is represented on a gravestone. Additionally, this flower appears on many graves in this cemetery, leading me to believe these flowers are for decoration as opposed to having any real symbolic value. |
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Barbora Chovanek. Barbora’s tall tombstone broke and is now propped against the base. I don’t touch the tombstones, so all I was able to discern is that she was from Ostrava, Moravia, located in the Czech Republic. |
| A longer look at Barbora’s grave. It’s in quite a state of disrepair. |
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I found John Borgess interesting because he served in both WWI and WWII. I noticed former military men a lot, given that we took these photos on July 4. |
| Here’s John buried with his wife Agnes. |
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All John Chasek has is this simple cross, but someone recently took the time to put out colorful, artificial flowers. Were they too old, they would be faded in the hot, Texas sun. |
| All writing on this stone has been completely eroded. |
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Ignac and Veronika Chovanec. This stone is written in Czech and due to the fading, I was unable to translate much beyond their names and dates of death. It appears that Vernonika hailed from Ostrava, Moravia. I am unable to determine what sort of flowers those may be at the top of the stone. |
| Frantisek Pavlasek. This grave stone interests me a lot because I cannot determine what the round symbol is at the top. Cole seems to think it is an acorn and he may be right. There are several explanations as to the symbolism of acorns, but given that this is the grave of a child, if that is an acorn, then it likely symbolizes a seed that never grew, an acorn that never became an oak. |
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Nothing on the metal gate explained what this was. Is it a fenced in grave covered in flowers? I am unsure – I have never seen a grave like this one before. But it was interesting, some of the only real greenery in this little cemetery. |
| Jan Fojtik. The bottom of the stone says odpocivej v pokoji, which is Czech for the Latin phrase Requiescat In Pace, which means Rest in Peace to the rest of us. As for the tiny IHS in the center of the cross, read below. |
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I have read several different interpretations for the presence of IHS on tombstone. The best explanations come from Stories in Stone by Douglas Keister. According to this source, though several explanations exist for this symbol, the real explanation is that IHS comes from the first three letters of Jesus’s name in Greek – Iota, Eta, Sigma. |
| Petr Jurecka. The symbol on this gravestone is also IHS, the letters overlaid. |
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Anton Jurecka. The top of the stone says: Zde = Here, odpociva = lies or rests, v = in, zesnuly = departed or deceased, Panu = to the Lord.
The bottom says: zeme = ground, budiz = so or well, mu = him or to him.
I cannot determine the last word but I believe it has something to do with heavens or the sky. This one definitely needs something better than Czech dictionaries to help me. I had a hard time determining what the flower on the top of the stone might be. My best guess is that since this is a child’s grave, it is a morning glory, a flower that blooms and dies the same day, an apt metaphor for a child’s death |
| I have been largely unsuccessful tracing the ethnicity of the name Zilem, but I find it very interesting that Adam Zilem served in a Wagoner division in the US Army. |
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A recent, highly decorated grave. The windchimes were actually pretty pleasant to listen to. |
| Another set of windchimes, set between two graves. |
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William Kubacek’s grave is very eroded, but I noted that the Czech spelling of his name – Vilem – was included on the tombstone. This one of only two graves I saw at Holy Trinity that had such an explicit image of Christ. The scroll is a symbol of life – both ends are rolled, indicating that life is of uncertain length. |
| Marie Polasek’s had the other vivid depiction of a suffering Christ. Her grave also sports the same scroll as William Kubacek’s. |
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Mike and Augustine Kohoutek. The flora on this tombstone appears, to my eye, to be maple leaves. I have been unable to find anything that talks about the symbolism of maple leaves in gravestones. |
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Many graves in the cemetery were marked only with these small white crosses. |
| Many graves marked only with white crosses were also covered in stones. |
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More graves marked only by white crosses, plus an idea of what a Central Texas graveyard looks like in the middle of the summer. |
| Those appear to me to be Calla Lilies on Johnny Vrana’s grave. Other than serving as a symbol of beauty, I haven’t been able to find any symbolism behind Calla Lilies. |
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I am unsure what the last name is on this grave but it appears to be Volny or Voliry. I assume the name is Theodora instead of Theodore because it seems more likely that a heart-shaped stone would be for a woman than a man. I am unable to determine much else that is on the tombstone. |
| There are a lot of Schwertners buried in Holy Trinity Cemetery. There is also a Schwertner, Texas not far from New Corn Hill. This grave area was interesting not only because it is one of the older parts of the cemetery, but also because of the tree stump. I don’t think a tree that large would have been permitted to grow were it not deliberate, and many sources online indicate that a tree stump on a grave site indicates a life cut short, or life cut down. If this was a tree planted at the gravesite that died, or was a tree that predated the graves and later died, it is still a very visually interesting plot. Also, the stone on the back left belongs to Theresia Schwertner, whose grave is the oldest in the cemetery. |
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Franziska Schwertner, nee Huebner, has Mutter across the top of her stone, as well as a cross over a palm frond. Several sources indicate that the palm frond is a Christian symbol associated with martyrs and St. Christopher, who carried Christ across a river and then put a palm tree staff in the ground. The palm then took root and bore fruit. |
| Gustav Schwertner’s grave initially gave me pause. Generally, I associate lambs with children’s graves, but lambs are used liberally throughout Christian iconography and mentioned frequently in the Bible, so according to varying sources, seeing a lamb on the grave of an older person is not that unusual. |
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This is the area where the priests who served at Holy Trinity Catholic Church are buried. |
| In the midst of all these Czechs and Germans are some Irish folk. Anne and Francis McParland. |
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A more ornate McParland stone for Edward McParland. |
| This is the grave of one of Anne and Francis McParland’s children, who died the same day she was born. Agnus McParland leads us into the documentation of the saddest part of any cemetery – the section mainly for children. Not all the children’s graves I show here came from Babyland, but most of them did. |
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Many of the baby graves appeared to lie between concrete runners. |
| Wider view of the baby graves. |
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Some of the children’s graves appeared to be marked by bricks. |
| A ceramic primer found in the baby graves. |
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This is typical for more modern children’s graves. The stone has a cherub, and there are small, assorted figurines associated with children decorating Carmen’s grave. |
| Despite her headstone, at the foot of her grave was this brick with her name crudely carved. |
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A grave for Frantiska Janosec. No idea of the birth and death dates but this is clearly a child’s grave. It can’t be much older than the 1930s or it would be far more eroded. |
| A closer look at the last name craved in the concrete around the grave. |
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Another concrete bordered child’s grave. |
| The Knapek family lost a lot of children, it seems. Central Texas was a hard place. Yet another concrete bordered child’s grave. |
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A slightly more ornate concrete-bordered grave. Evidently, concrete borders or graves with borders shows a European influence. |
| According to some research online, Curtis Wayne Marak was born and died in 1952. A very crude but, for reasons I am unsure of, very touching grave. |
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Little Jesse Peace’s grave was also especially heart-wrenching, mainly because of the obvious care still taken of his grave. |
| I believe this is a child’s grave, mainly due to the location and its size. This brick border has clearly seen better days. |
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Paul Adolph Tschoerner’s grave is one of the few older graves for a child that has an upright headstone, as well as the concrete border. |
| Another modern, heartbreaking grave for a child. This grave was one of the few in the cemetery with fresh flowers. |
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A closer look at a figurine at the foot of Travis Parrish’s grave. |
| This is a child’s grave, a conclusion I reached mainly from the location – it was surrounded by children’s graves. The name on the plot indicator is faded completely, and the bricks, obviously, are in disarray. However, despite the apparent age of the grave, the bricks are very new in appearance. This graveyard is not closely taken care of, but clearly someone at the church puts out artificial flowers and looks after things. I find these new bricks on an old, unmarked grave, very touching. |
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Closer look at the bricks |
If anyone who can better translate the Czech or German on these graves, please speak up! And stay tuned for Corn Hill.
Sources used for Holy Trinity Cemetery:
Books
Stories in Stone: A Field Guide to Cemetery Symbolism and Iconography by Douglas Keister
Websites on Genealogy/Name Ethnicity
Williamson County, Texas Digital Burial Project (http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~shep/cemeteries/holy_trinity.html)
http://schierfamily.com/carlgustaveschier.html
http://surnames.behindthename.com/
http://www.moravian-connection.com/master-p/surname_index.htm
Websites on Cemetery Symbology
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~txcemeteries/symbol.htm
http://www.genevahistoricalsociety.com/PDFs/Cemetery%20Stories/Symbol%20List.pdf
http://cemeteries.wordpress.com/
General Central Texas History
http://www.texasescapes.com/TexasHillCountryTowns/New-Corn-Hill-Texas.htm
http://www.wchm-tx.org/corn_hill.htm |
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