Monthly Archives: October 2011
Cemetery Tour–Part 1
As you approach the gates of the Jeffrey Cemetery you are greeted by the Texas Historical Marker that was erected in 2004 by the Texas Historical Commission.
This marker offers a brief history of the establishment of the cemetery.
“Tennessee native Abraham Roberts wed Cynthia Jeffrey in Alabama in 1828. The couple arrived in Seguin, Texas, ten years later with their family. In 1840, Roberts purchased land on Tinney’s Creek in what was then Gonzales County. He and other area residents petitioned the Texas Legislature to create a new county, which was formed in 1847 and named Caldwell. That year the Roberts family made the first burial on family property when granddaughter Martha Ellison died while visiting them. The family and local residents soon began using the site as a community burial ground.
There are conflicting stories about the origins of the cemetery name and about which family gave the land for the site, but a 1921 deed cited acreage conveyed earlier to a cemetery association. In 1938, the community officially adopted the name Jeffrey Cemetery and elected officers to a board of trustees.
Today, the association maintains the site and continues traditional homecomings for families and friends of those buried here. Among the several hundred graves are the names of veterans of military service dating to the U.S.-Mexican War, as well as generations of area residents. Historic Texas Cemetery – 2004″
As you walk toward the main gate you see the twin pillars of the veteran’s memorial with the names of the veterans buried here. They continue to stand guard over the cemetery just as our men and women of our armed forces stand guard today at home and around the world. Ever vigilant and ever ready to fight and die for our freedom.
Veterans buried here dating from the Mexican-American War, American Civil War, World War I, World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War, Iraq War, and other events are listed on the Pillars in no specific order.
The Pillars stand 6 ft. tall and new names are engraved to honor their service as a veteran is burried here.
Passing through the main gate of the cemetery you immediately notice the flowers place by families and visitors. The American flags are placed on the veteran’s graves by the American Legion and VFW. It is quite evident that this is an active cemetery where many families visit often to place flowers and small tokens of the memories of their loved ones buried here.
The cemetery is maintained year round by the Jeffrey Cemetery Association with regular mowings and trimmings of the grounds. Maintenance of the headstones is in the care of the families.
Two black-top driveways provide access by service vehicles during maintenance and internment services. Visitors are asked to park in the areas provided outside the cemetery fence.
Upon entering the main gates you can’t help but notice the Old Oak Tree that majestically stretches out over the graves on the south side of the cemetery.
The grave of Martha Ellison (b.1840, d.1847), the first to be buried here, lies under the west side of the Old Oak Tree.
By: Gregg Sterner
Posted: Oct. 30, 2011
Headstone Photo Project – Phase 2
The editing of the photos is progressing slowly. So far we’ve processed 859 photos with 335 to go. We’ve also sorted out 63 photos that are either duplicate or unusable.
At this time we are renaming the photos to the family names so that we can load them into the database for each grave. We’re also enhancing the color to make them more readable. Lastly, we’re straighting and cropping the photos so the headstone is predominant in the picture just like the ones shown in the photo to the left.
We’re hoping to be halfway through the project by the 2012 Homecoming reunion. We will be bringing our computers to the Homecoming so family members can contribute more photos and Obituaries for their deceased loved ones.
More later.
Gregg & Mary (Cole) Sterner
Posted: Oct. 29, 2011
All Headstone Photos Have Been Completed – Phase 1
What a job. This past weekend, Oct. 15-16, 2011 we completed our first photo session. We photographed every headstone in the cemetery and we have re-inventoried all graves. The graves registration data will be uploaded to the web site database next week. Once the database is loaded we will start attaching headstone images and grave location maps.
We took over 1750 photos of headstones, foot stones, service stones, and infant stones. We now have to edit each photo to crop them and reduce their file size for web display. We will be offering you the opportunity to download the headstones in their original full size format.
We used the Canon EOS Rebel T2i Black 18.0 MP 3.0″ 1.04M LCD Digital SLR Camera w/ EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS Lens with a UV filter to take most photos.
We worked from 8am to 3pm on Saturday and 8am to 11:30am on Sunday.
Once we have edited all of the photos we’ll be making a list of those headstones that need to be re-taken. Because of time constraints we wanted to get at least one photo of every headstone. In some cases the photo was taken too early in the day causing too many shadows or it was too late in the afternoon to get a good lighted frontal picture.
Since all headstones face east, pictures for the up-right sitting headstones have to be taken between 9am and 1pm. Pictures for th up-right and slanted face pictures can be taken as late as 2pm. Pictures of foot stones and service stones which lay flat need to be taked between 11am and 3pm for best overhead lighting. Obviously, in an attempt to get at least one photo per headstone some headstones have too much shadow requiring them to be photographed again.
Hopefully by the time of the 2012 reunion we’ll have most everything on-line for everyone to enjoy.
We want to thank Tom Owen for all his help. Tom is the keeper of the master grave registrations and has assisted us in this project from the beginning.
We look forward to seeing everyone next spring.
Gregg and Mary (Cole) Sterner
Posted: Oct. 21, 2011
Rememberence for Randolf Hellums
Each year PePaw’s Posse holds a rememberence for PePaw (Randolph Hellums (b:1942,d:2009)) to keep his spirit alive for the next generation.
Photo By: Gregg Sterner Oct. 15, 2011
Posted: Oct. 17, 2011
