It’s been a while since I’ve tackled a cemetery like Sparkman/Hillcrest Memorial Park Cemetery. But you can’t write about Dallas cemeteries without mentioning it. While we’d already spent a hot day in the Uptown Neighborhood visiting three different cemeteries, I knew I couldn’t leave Dallas without visiting Sparkman/Hillcrest. We actually went twice, once for the outside and another for the mausoleum. The latter was closed the first time we visited.

Covering about 88 acres, Sparkman/Hillcrest is currently owned by Dignity Memorial, a large conglomerate operated by Houston-based Service Corporation International (SCI). Although it was founded in 1962, SCI didn’t introduce the Dignity Memorial Brand until 1999. As of 2015, they owned 1,435 funeral homes and 374 cemeteries in America. That’s a big chunk of the death care industry.

Information on the cemetery itself is spotty. In more than one place, I read that some of its graves date back to the 1850s but I didn’t see those. One source said the cemetery was created with land donated by William Barr Caruth, an early Dallas settler. The Caruth Pioneer Cemetery is located within Sparkman/Hillcrest near the front the cemetery but we didn’t know about it at the time.

A Gangster’s Funeral

A native of Jackson, Tenn., William Sparkman relocated his funeral home business to Dallas’ Belo mansion on Ross Avenue in 1926. I don’t know what year they sold it but the mansion is currently a wedding/event venue. The Sparkman funeral home is on the grounds of what used to be known as Hillcrest Cemetery now.

Even before gangster Clyde Barrow (of the infamous Bonnie and Clyde) died in 1934, his father had already asked the Sparkmans to handle Clyde’s funeral. He knew what was going to happen eventually. After Clyde died in a shootout with police, it was the Sparkman hearse that brought his body back to Dallas from Louisiana. Thousands came to see the criminal’s corpse. While Barrow is buried in another Dallas cemetery, his funeral put the Sparkman name on the map.

Most of the graves we saw were from the 1970s up so the styles were accordingly more modern.

A Texas Sports Legend

One of the first graves I went hunting for was for a name even non-sports enthusiasts probably know. If you’re from Texas, it’s pretty much required knowledge. Dallas Cowboys football coach Tom Landry was the first coach the team had when it came into being in 1960. He is revered as a football coaching legend.

I’ve never been a huge NFL fan. But even I knew about the Dallas Cowboys/Pittsburgh Steelers rivalry during the 1970s. During out trip, we visited AT&T Stadium (built in 2009 to replace Texas Stadium) and took a tour. The giant statue of Landry that was placed at Texas Stadium in 2000 after Landry’s death is there.

From 1966 to 1982, the Cowboys played in 12 NFL or NFC Championship games. They also appeared in 10 NFC Championship games in the 13-year span from 1970 to 1982. Landry led the Cowboys to three Super Bowl appearances in four years between 1975 and 1978, and five in nine years between 1970 and 1978. They won in 1972 and 1978.

But the Cowboys’ performance faltered in the 1980s. There was a great deal of fan outcry when Landry was fired by new team owner Jerry Jones before the 1989 season. Landry’s last work in professional football was as a “limited partner” of the San Antonio Riders of the World League in 1992.

Life Before Football

One thing I didn’t know about Tom Landry was that before he himself played pro football, he’d experienced some tough times. He interrupted his education at the Univ. of Texas at Austin after one semester to serve in the U.S. Army Air Corps (later known as the U.S. Air Force) during World War II. Landry was inspired to join in honor of his brother Robert Landry, who enlisted after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941.

While ferrying a B-17 over to England, Robert Landry’s plane went down over the North Atlantic. Several weeks passed before the Army was able to officially declare Robert Landry dead. While serving in the Army Air Corps, Tom Landry completed a combat tour of 30 missions, and survived a crash landing in Belgium after his bomber ran out of fuel.

After the war, Tom returned to college. He earned his master’s in industrial engineering in 1952. He’d spent a season with the New York Yankees (a former pro football team) in 1949, and when that conference collapsed, he moved on to the New York Giants. In total, he spent six years playing professional football before moving to coaching.

Landry died on Feb. 12, 2000 at the age of 75. His wife, Alicia, died 10 months later on Dec. 21, 2000 at the age of 70. They are buried beside each other. A large monument is behind them with a replica of the familiar fedora Landry was known to wear on the sidelines when he coached the Cowboys.

Career of a Controversial Ex-Senator

Until I began doing my research on who was buried at Sparkman/Hillcrest, I didn’t realize that Texas Senator John Tower was buried there. His plot is not too far from Tom Landry’s.

Born a preacher’s son in 1925 in Houston, John Tower served in World War II. He worked on the 1956 presidential campaign of Dwight D. Eisenhower. Tower lost Texas’s 1960 Senate election to Democratic Senator Lyndon B. Johnson. With the Democratic victory in the 1960 presidential election, Johnson vacated his Senate seat to become Vice President. In the 1961 special election to fill the vacancy caused by Johnson’s resignation, Tower narrowly defeated Democrat William A. Blakley. He won re-election in 1966, 1972, and 1978.

In the 1960s, Tower was fairly conservative but that began to change in the 70s. Starting in 1976 with his support of Gerald Ford rather than Ronald Reagan in the 1976 Republican primaries, Tower began to alienate many fellow conservatives. He became less conservative over time, later voicing support for legal abortion and opposing President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative in 1982.

Tower retired from the Senate in 1985 amidst allegations he’d acted as liaison for Robert Maxwell, a British publishing mogul and super-agent for Mossad, to the White House and to U.S. government operations. Tower served as chief negotiator of the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks with the Soviet Union and led the Tower Commission. The commission’s report was highly critical of the Reagan administration’s relations with Iran and the Contras.

In 1989, incoming President George H. W. Bush (also a Texan) chose Tower as his nominee for Secretary of Defense. In an almost unheard of move, his nomination was rejected by the Senate. The largest factors were concern about possible conflicts of interest and Tower’s personal life, in particular allegations of alcohol abuse and womanizing.

Tragic Plane Crash

On April 5, 1991, John Tower’s plane crashed while on approach for landing at Brunswick, Ga. The crash instantly killed everyone on board, including Tower and his middle daughter, Marian, the astronaut Sonny Carter, and 20 others. I visited Sonny Carter’s grave at Gainesville, Ga.’s Alta Vista Cemetery some years ago, never expecting I would later visit two graves of his fellow passengers.

John Tower was 65 when he died and daughter Marian was only 35. Tower’s wife, Lou, died at the age of 81 in 2001. The thee are buried together at Sparkman/Hillcrest.

Something Different

I’m going to close out this post with a monument that definitely stood out from the rest.

Born in Chicago in 1898, Welville Fred Vehon moved to Dallas with his family later in life. He owned a men’s clothing store. He died at the age of 67 in 1965.

I can only surmise that perhaps the statue on top of the marker is based on an original done by someone else. The only thing I could find out about it was that the statue was originally a nude but the cemetery would not allow it until discreet draping was added.

I’ll be back next time with more from Sparkman/Hillcrest Memorial Park.

I mentioned last week that I didn’t spend much time at Old Calvary Cemetery in Dallas due to the rising temperature that day. The same holds true for next door’s Temple Emanu-El Cemetery. But I spent even less time there for another reason that has never happened to me before.

When I walked through from Old Calvary Cemetery (there’s a paved path between the two), it wasn’t long before two dogs came running toward me barking angrily. I was frozen in place and fearing the worst when a voice called for them to stop. Thankfully, they did. It turns out one of the caretakers had brought his dogs with him to work. While the caretaker was very nice, the dogs weren’t nearly as friendly.

The caretaker assured me they wouldn’t hurt me but I was not so sure how they’d behave if I encountered them again when he was busy doing his work elsewhere in the cemetery. So I didn’t explore much after that. What you’ll see are the few pictures I took there that day.

A helpful sign explained the history of Temple Emanu-El Cemetery’s history. As was the case of Old Calvary Hill being the second oldest Catholic Cemetery in Dallas, Temple Emanu-El is the second oldest known Jewish burial ground in the city. Find a Grave has about 3,250 memorials recorded for this cemetery.

When a young Jewish man died in Dallas in June 1872 who was a stranger to the city, the small Jewish community of Dallas felt it was their responsibility to give him a proper burial. A group of 11 young men formed the Hebrew Benevolent Society and secured land for a burial plot on Akard Street from Mayor Henry Ervay. There were already cemeteries there for the Odd Fellows and Masons so it made sense at the time.

When plans were made in 1956 to build the Dallas Civic Center on the property where these graves were located, they were moved to Temple Emanu-El Cemetery.

Birth of a New Jewish Cemetery

The congregation of Temple Emanu-El was established around 1875 and met at their temple on Commerce Street that opened in 1876. The majority of members were Eastern European immigrants. In 1884, the trustees of Temple Emanu-El purchased land from the John Cole family. The first burials were those of Russian immigrants Aaron L. Levy and Jacob Rosenthal.

I didn’t learn until this week that one of the mausoleums I photographed held the remains of a Dallas businessman known more for his passion for baseball than his success as a businessman. Much of his delightful story I found in an article written by his granddaughter May Sebel.

The Biggest Baseball Fan in Dallas

Born in 1878 in Buffalo, Texas, Hyman Pearlstone lived in Palestine, Texas with his family. He operated a successful wholesale grocery business and served on a number of corporate boards. But the true love of his life (after his wife, Claire) was baseball.

Hyman coached the Palestine Elks and in 1905, he went to New Orleans on business. The Philadelphia Athletics (today known as the Oakland A’s) were staying at the same hotel when one of the players saw Hyman wearing an Elks pin. He introduced him to Doc Powers, catcher for the team. Hyman invited Doc to attend the theater with him that evening. Doc Powers told him that the A’s next spring training would be in Marlin, Texas, just down the road from Palestine. Doc invited Hyman to come watch the team.

The following year, at the hotel in Marlin, Hyman introduced himself to the legendary Connie Mack, who was manager, treasurer, and part owner of the Athletics. A longtime friendship began at that meeting.

Following spring training, Hyman received a large box from Connie Mack containing a baseball uniform, shoes, hat, and a glove. There was also a note from Mack inviting Hyman to spend his summer vacations traveling with the team. For Hyman, it was a dream come true!

For the next 45 years, Hyman spent one month of the summer doing just that. He would pitch to the team during practice in the early years, but later did some scouting and advised players on business matters. Hyman and Connie were guests of the Macks at every World Series, and this tradition continued even after Mack sold the team in 1955.

When Hyman died in 1966, his baseball memorabilia was sent to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. Hyman Pearlstone is the only known “civilian” to ever have traveled with a Major League Baseball team.

“God Called Thee Home”

One of the sweetest markers I have ever seen is this one for Gerald Cohn. I didn’t know whose grave it was when I photographed it because I did not see that his name and dates were on the back of the base under the “shell”. I found out later by looking at the surname of “Cohn” on the marker behind it on Find a Grave.

Gerald was the son of Leopold and Sarah Cohn.

Born on July 19, 1886, Gerald was the son of German-born Leopold and Sarah Baer Cohn. I believe Sarah was Leopold’s second wife because he is listed as a widower in the 1880 Census and was living with his two sons, Albert and Bernard. He married Sarah Baer in Dallas on Jan. 30, 1881. Newspapers from 1884 advertise his barber shop on the corner of Lamar and Main Streets.

Bernard died at the age of five on Jan. 19, 1882 and is also buried at Temple Emanu-El Cemetery. There is another stone for an infant daughter born to Leopold and Sarah, but the dates are blurry.

Gerald died on June 5, 1888, having lived a year, 10 months, and 17 days. I have seen a number of shell graves of this nature over the years, but this is the first time I’ve seen a lamb in the shell instead of a sleeping child. In this case, it is a lamb resting on an elegant cushion with tassels on the corners.

Leopold died in 1915 at the age of 65 and Sarah died in 1917 at the age of 59. I was unable to trace Albert after the 1910 Census.

Work of Art

I was heading to the back gate to find Chris in the rental car when an unusual marker caught my eye. It was definitely different than most of the markers I’d seen that entire day so I wandered over to get a better look.

Born in 1884, Alex Wesiberg was the son of Russian immigrants. Some records indicate he himself was born in Russia but others say he was born in Waco, Texas. He married Marie Kahn in New York in 1920. He was working as an attorney by that time. Together, Alex and Marie had three children.

At the time of Alex’s death in 1951 from a heart ailment, he was an attorney in his own firm, Thompson, Knight, Wright, Weisberg, and Simmons. His death notice indicates he’d not only been involved in city planning but had been head of the Dallas Art Association. That told me Alex likely had an eye for the unusual. I think his monument, which he shares with Marie, expresses that. She died on Nov. 5, 1979.

Temple Emanu-El has an Alex Weisberg Library so I am believing it was created in his memory.

Next time, I’ll be starting a new series at Dallas’ Sparkman Hillcrest Memorial Park.

 

 

Located just across the street from Greenwood Cemetery is Old Calvary Cemetery. Some call it Old Calvary Hill Cemetery. But because there’s also a Calvary Hill Cemetery that came later, I’m staying with Old Calvary Cemetery.

I will tell you that we visited Old Calvary after spending over an hour at Greenwood when it was approaching 100 degrees. When it’s that hot, even a seasoned cemetery hopper like me starts to wilt. So I spent less time here than I normally would. Chris was in the car trying to cool off and re-hydrate.

Calvary Cemetery has two entrances. Because of construction taking place near the Hall Street gate (which was obscured by some orange cones), I entered through the Campbell Street gate.

Whereas Greenwood Cemetery was limited to Protestant burials, Calvary Cemetery was established for Catholic burials. It wasn’t the first cemetery for Dallas-area Catholics, however. That was La Reunion (also known as Fishtrap) Cemetery in West Dallas, a burial ground for French and Belgian immigrants who were part of the utopian La Reunion Colony founded in 1855. That cemetery is still intact and maintained by the City of Dallas.

Old Calvary Cemetery was established around 1878. It was the burial ground for immigrants mostly from France, Ireland, Italy, Germany, Poland, and Czechoslovakia, the European origins of settlers of that period. There are about 2,000 burials recorded for Old Calvary on Find a Grave.

By 1926, the Dallas Diocese had established the much larger Calvary Hill Cemetery north of the current Love Field Airport. As a result, there have been few burials at Old Calvary since 1945.

Birth of the Dallas Diocese

Because of the influx of immigrants coming into North Texas in the latter part of the 1800s, the statewide Diocese of Galveston was split and the Diocese of Dallas was created. The first bishop of Dallas, the Right Reverend Thomas Brennan, was consecrated in 1891. That’s the same year the unmarked cross (pictured below) at the center of Old Calvary’s Religious Circle was placed.

In the 1880s, St. Mary’s Orphanage was established in Oakcliff for needy orphans. Father John Moore was one of its first chaplains. He died of heart failure at the age of 61 in 1895.

The Heart of Father Hartnett

Father Jeffrey A. Hartnett was a native of Ireland but came to America at age four with his family. He attended St. Mary’s College in Kansas and St. Mary’s Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio where he received a master of arts degree in 1891. He returned to Texas and was ordained at the procathedral in Dallas by Rev. Brennan the same year.

In late 1897, he was appointed rector of the procathedral in Dallas and immediately applied his building skills to the construction of the present cathedral. In early 1899, a smallpox epidemic broke out in Dallas, and Father Jeffrey tended to the spiritual needs of the disease victims at the “pest house” (quarantine hospital) six miles away.

On the night of February 11, 1899, an blizzard hit Dallas. Answering the call for help, Hartnett walked to the pest house at the peak of the blizzard to administer last rites to a dying woman. He contracted smallpox and on March 7, 1899, he died. He was only 36 years old.

The Dallas Morning News remarked: “No death which has occurred in Dallas for many years, has occasioned more general regret than that of Rev. Father Hartnett.”

Also located within the Religious Circle at Old Calvary are the graves of four Catholic nuns. They all are thought to have died under the age of 25. The Sisters of Mary of Nahum came to Fort Worth in 1885 and opened an academy. In 1902, the Sisters purchased the former James Dargan mansion in Oakcliff and opened Our Lady of Good Counsel School. In 1912, they began building a school in East Dallas at St. Edward’s Church.

The nun who I found the most information on was Sister Conlon. A native of Ireland born in 1889, Sister Antonia Conlon came to America in 1907 to teach at schools in Fort Worth and Wichita Falls before coming to Dallas. She died following an appendectomy on Jan. 22, 1913 at the age of 23. Her grave marker and death certificate have her first name as “Antonio” for reasons I don’t know.

Death of a Humble Clerk

One of the first markers I saw near the front was this one for young Stephen S. Marino. I suspect there might have been a cross on top of it originally. He was only 15 when he died. Because he passed away in 1917, I wondered if it was Spanish Flu. But I was wrong.

Born in 1901, Stephen was the son of Italian immigrants Joseph Marino and Jennie La Barbara Marino. Joe was a fruit and vegetable peddler in Dallas and Stephens was the Marinos’ oldest son.

At the time of his death, Stephen was working as a clerk for Butler Brothers, a Chicago-based wholesaler whose building was constructed around 1910. It was a massive structure at the time and employed many.

Stephen was only a few months shy of his 16th birthday when he fell ill and went to the Texas Baptist Memorial Sanitarium for treatment. This facility would go on to become Baylor University Medical Center.

Stephen died at the Sanitarium on March 19, 1917. His death certificate lists “chronic olitis media” as the main cause of death, a middle ear infection. A step infection is listed as a secondary contributor. His four younger siblings all lived well into adulthood and his parents also lived long lives. But they are buried at other cemeteries.

Tracking a Family Tree

The Dessaint tree monument is a puzzling piece of history and it took me a while to figure out exactly what was going on with it. Initially, I thought that the children whose names are on it were not actually buried there because the cemetery was not established until 1878 and the deaths occurred in the early 1860s. Also, the parents lived in Iowa when these children died.

A native of Quebec, Canada, Louis Cyriac Dessaint married Marie Claire Duroshier in St. Louis, Mo. in 1839. Their first four children, Marie, Louis A., Emilie, and Clara were born there. Sometime after Clara’s birth in 1857, they moved to Davenport, Iowa where Cora, Eugene, and Adella were born. Louis made his mark in Davenport, accumulating wealth through his hardware store and lumber business. He built a number of homes that include the Palmer Mansion, which still stands today.

Louis and Marie Dessaint left Iowa for Dallas in 1885 after youngest daughter Adella married real estate agent Frank Irvine of Virginia and had moved there.

Children’s Remains Moved

It was finding the 1907 death notice for Marie Claire, Louis’ wife, that solved the mystery of the Dessaint children’s final resting place. Louis C., their father, had the remains of Eugene, Cora, and Clara disinterred from a Davenport, Iowa cemetery and moved to Calvary Cemetery in Dallas when they moved to Texas. It really is a testament to how valuable old newspaper clippings can be!

Sadly, daughter Adella died on Aug. 25, 1894 at the age of 31. You can see her name/dates near the foot of the tree marker. Placed nearby is a marker to a baby named Addie, who was born on April 14, 1894 and died 10 months later in March 1895. I think she must be the daughter of Adella and Frank Irvine since Adella died only nine days after little Addie was born.

The names of Adella’s siblings who died in the 1860s are inscribed on other parts of the tree. Lying at the base is part of the “tree” that has since broken off for Eugene, who was born in 1859. I cannot make out exactly when he died.

There there is Claire or “Clara” (as she was called) who died in January 1862 at the age of 10.

Then there is sister Corinne “Cora” who was born on July 12, 1857 and died in December 1862, almost a year after her older sister Clara.

Marie, the family matriarch, died on Jan. 26, 1907. Patriarch Louis C. Dessaint followed on Dec. 20 of the same year. They are buried beside each other next to the Dessaint tree. Adella’s husband, Frank, died in 1908 at a sanitarium in Colorado from consumption. His body was brought back to Dallas for burial beside his wife and in-laws at Old Calvary.

Next time, I’ll be next door at Temple Emanu-El Cemetery.

 

We’re not done at Greenwood Cemetery in Dallas, Texas just yet. With a cemetery this big, there are too many stories that I can’t seem to leave out.

I am often drawn to markers with the names of multiple children on them. I always find it hard to grasp the grief of a couple who has anticipated the joy of the birth of a child, only to experience heart-breaking loss within a year or two. Over and over.

The Clark family is one such family.

Tennessee native William Jefferson Clark, born in 1828, moved with his family to Harrison County, Texas. After serving in the Mexican War in 1848, he met and married Loucinda Jane Fisher around 1858. She was a recent arrival to Texas from Georgia.

Dallas Pioneer

Clark farmed alongside his family and John H. Bryan, a family friend who came from Tennessee with the Clarks. By 1860, William Clark was a wealthy farmer with large property holdings.

In March 1862, Clark helped raise Company A of the 19th Texas Infantry of the Confederacy in Jefferson, Texas. Following the Civil War, Clark returned home and moved his family to Dallas County where he invested in Keyes, Clarke, and Company, a dry goods mercantile, with his friend, John H. Bryan. The two renamed their store Clark & Bryan Dry Goods.

William and Loucinda had their first child, Leslie, in 1859. He would marry, raise a family, and operate a successful real estate business in Dallas with help from his father. Second son Atwell Wycliff was born in 1865. He never married but helped his father in the day-to-day operations of his dry goods business.

On Ancestry, I found a few letters Atwell wrote to his cousins later in life describing memories of his childhood in Dallas. Wycliff Avenue and Wycliff Avenue Lake in Dallas are probably named after him as it is located on what was originally the W.J. Clark Cedar Springs addition that his father and brother developed.

Young Lives Cut Short

Over the next several years, Loucinda would give birth seven more times. Herbert was born in 1869 and died in 1871. Jessie Lou was born in 1871 and died the same year. Leeta was born in 1874 and lived a long life. Virgia was born in 1876 and died the same year. Fannie was born in 1876 and died the same year. Bertha was born in 1878 and lived well into adulthood. Their last child, Mathew Ennis, was born in 1880 and only lived a week.

The Clark monument features a statue of a female figure that was originally pointing upward but has lost a few fingers. When I first saw this photo I took of her, it almost looked like she was holding her fist up in defiance. It made me wonder if there were times Loucinda’s got angry at God because so many of her children died. It had to have been so hard to bear.

William’s partnership with Bryan resulted in a highly successful Dallas retail establishment and provided Clark with capital that he invested in real estate and railroads.

I wasn’t able to trace Loucinda with any of her adult children after William’s death in 1901 of heart failure. But she was living in Atlanta when she died in 1917. Her remains were brought back to Dallas for burial at Greenwood Cemetery beside William and her little ones. Son Leslie, who died in 1919 at age 59, is also buried at Greenwood with his wife, Lula, in a different plot. Atwell died in 1925 and is buried with his parents.

The Loss of Four Children

The markers for the Terry family also attest to the deaths of several children. But I found more holes than fabric when I tried to knit together their history.

Born in South Carolina around 1837, Charles Terry moved with his family to Mississippi where they farmed. Charles moved to Dallas in 1866 and his brothers followed in the next few years. He married Martha “Maffie” Clark at some time after that. They had two daughters, Winnie (1871) and Maidie (1873). Charles is listed as a merchant in 1870, a miller in 1880 and as a landlord in 1900. Apparently, the Terry brothers owned and operated a flour mill with a Charles Beauchamp. I found an ad for a dry goods store opened by the two Charles from 1870.

Both of Maffie and Charles’ daughters lived well into adulthood, married, and had children.

I don’t know if Maffie died or the couple divorced. But Charles married Louisiana native Caroline “Carrie” Beauchamp in 1874. She was likely related to the Beauchamps he operated the store with but I’m not sure how.

Daughter Augusta was born in 1876. Over the next several years, they would have several children but none of them would live to adulthood. I do not know what years these children were born or died. Only the names on four stones at Greenwood Cemetery survive. According to the 1900 Census, Carried reported that she had given birth to six children but only one (Augusta) survived.

Charles died in 1907 and his will reveals that he left everything to Carrie, Winnie, Augusta, and Maidie. Carried died in 1931 of heart failure at the age of 81. She and Charles both have what are called “cradle” style graves because of their oval shape. I believe that they were created after Charles died and that one was made for Carrie at that time. But there are no dates on either. Such a style would not have been common in the 1930s.

Maidie died of a brain tumor in 1926 at age 53 and is buried with her husband (who would become mayor of Dallas in 1932) in Grove Hill Cemetery in Dallas. Winnie died in 1942 at age 72 and is buried with her husband in Laurel Land Memorial Park in Dallas.

Part I of the Life of Henry C. Coke

My start my last story is what I’ll call Part I of the life of Henry C. Coke. I say that because his first wife and two of his children with her are buried at Greenwood. But Henry is not buried with them. He would go on to remarry and have a second family. Perhaps a second life.

Born in 1856 in Norfolk, Va., Henry Cornick Coke was the son of farmer/attorney William Coke and his wife, Lucy Cornick Cook. William was the nephew of Senator Richard Coke of Dallas. Henry graduated from the College of William and Mary and got his law degree from the Univ. of Virginia in 1879. He arrived in Dallas in 1881.

Henry married Texas native Roberta Lee Rosser sometime in 1884. Before their union, Roberta was often lauded in the Dallas papers for her musical prowess as a vocalist. Their first child, Roberta, was born in 1885. Henry was practicing law and making a name for himself in Dallas by this time.

Their second child, Henry Coke, Jr., was born on Nov. 17, 1884. Hobson Coke was born on Feb. 8, 1887 but died only three months later on May 10, 1887. His marker is what I term the “baby on a half shell” style that I see from time to time.

Roberta would give birth a final time on Aug. 3, 1888 to Rosser “R.J.” Coke. She died a week later on Aug. 9, 1888. I found no newspaper articles about her death. Henry erected this large monument to her that is topped with an urn from which an eternal flame emerges.

Part II of Henry Coke’s Life

Henry would marry again in 1890 to Missouri native Margaret Johnson, whose father was a civil engineer in Dallas. They had three children together over the next 10 years: Richard in 1892, Lucy in 1896, and Anna in April 1900.

But tragedy would strike again a month after Anna’s birth. Henry Jr., 15, was attending high school in Sherman, Texas at Letellier High School when he went swimming with three friends. According to a newspaper article, he got a cramp and drowned. He was buried beside his mother at Greenwood Cemetery.

Henry and Margaret had their last child, another Henry Jr., on Aug. 24, 1903. Henry Sr.’s success as an attorney continued. He served as chief counsel for Standard Oil when Texas sought to dissolve the company as a corporate entity there. He was also heavily involved in the banking industry. When he died in 1933 at the age of 77, he was chairman of the board of the First National Bank of Dallas.

Wife Margaret died the following year. They are buried together at Grove Hill Memorial Park in Dallas. Henry and Roberta’s first child, Roberta, and her husband are buried there along with three of his children with Margaret. They all lived well into old age. Anna is interred in the mausoleum at Sparkman Hillcrest Memorial Park in Dallas.

There are many more stories that I could share from Greenwood Cemetery. But I’ll leave those for another day. Next time, I’ll be across the street at Calvary Cemetery.