Elmerine Bell-Save St. Mary Cemetery in Italy, TX

SAVE ST. MARY CEMETERY

What is now known as St. Mary Cemetery, is located on Hughes Cemetery Road near the towns of Avalon, Forreston and Italy (Ellis County), Texas, dates back to at least 1851. The burial ground is shown on a county map dated 1861 and was a part of the Tarrant Plantation, owned by General Edward H. Tarrant, the person for whom Tarrant County, Texas, is named. The 1870 United States Federal Census shows the area encompassing the St. Mary Community as Ellis County, Texas, Waxahachie - Chambers Creek Post Office. As late as 1940, census records the St. Mary Community as having a school with a teacher in residence nearby. As further verification, a photograph exists from the early 1930s with images of a group of students with their teacher whose family owned a nearby farm.

On March 24, 2012, family members who went to the cemetery as a part of quarterly maintenance reported that someone had encroached upon the burial grounds, desecrating the oldest portion of the cemetery on the west and north sides by removing mature trees and foliage. It appeared, from visible tracks in the soil, that some type of excavator had been used to create a road from Hughes Cemetery Road through the cemetery to the west, taking out gravestones - some that had been there for more than a century -along with the vegetation. Grave memorabilia were found within and north of the newly constructed road. Graves lay underneath the road and the topography of the entire west side of the cemetery had be compromised. At least three piles of trees, foliage and grave markers were viewed in a western field.