With this the weekend prior to 9-11, Judy Webb with justserve.org called on LEAP Ambassadors and other reliable service organizations to assist with an ongoing “billion graves” project. This project involves documenting all the graves in Oakwood Cemetery, one of the most historic cemeteries in Texas.
It’s a project we began last year, but with almost 5,000 headstones in Oakwood, this is a multi-year project. It also meant an early start to today’s work…
After scouting out locations and developing a plan of attack, we met with the other volunteers Ms. Webb had recruited…
….and we got to work.
We had our advisors, Professor Yawn and Ms. Stephanie; Mac Woodward; and we had a grave veteran (Yvette) and grave newbies (Olivia, Michelle, and Ariza), so it was a good opportunity to do a mix of learning and teaching. The work consists primarily of two duties: (1) checking to see whether a grave has been entered, and if not, (2) photographing it, and transcribing its information into the billion graves website.
Professor Yawn has done more than 100 graves, and Morgan and Yvette have done almost 100. Today, we each did about 15, but we also confirmed approximately an equal amount. One of the challenges of this process is that a lot of people go through the cemetery more or less randomly, which means many graves may have been entered, but not in any systematic way. Our goal was to go through these systematically and, eventually, finish the Cemetery.
And, of course, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to pose with Sam Houston’s Grave!
The project is also an opportunity to learn about local history beyond Sam Houston. We were able to see headstones with names that are still seen around town, including: Thomason, Wynne, Powell, Rather, Robinson, Gibbs, Smither, and Yoakum.
We also had the chance to see the graves of (presumably) Yellow Fever victims (those who died in 1867) and the Powell family’s sculpture of Thorwaldsen’s Christ.
It was a great learning experience, a bit of fun, a contribution to the community, and a good way to honor those who were victims on 9-11.
Center for Law, Engagement, and Politics 