WILLS POINT, Texas. Dec 4 – Sorrow is has been said is a crucible in which character is refined.

That perhaps is why John W. Jamieson, veteran sexton of the White Rose Cemetery in Wills Point is one of the town's best loved citizens. In the last thirty-seven years he has supervised the burial of more than a thousand friends, neighbors and relatives. Today, at 76, he is a kindly and sympathetic sage to whom an entire community goes for comfort.

It was early in 1901 when John Jamieson agreed to help out in the cemetery when Sexton Lonzo Houser became ill. It was understood his job was to last only three days. But Houser never returned to work and on his death a few months later Jamieson was appointed sexton. Since then he has been on the job continually.

"It is home to me now," he said, "just as it will be when I pass on. When I walk among the gravestones and monuments I am walking among my friends. Dead? Yes, but their memories are very much alive. I knew them in life and shared their pleasures and disappointments.

Still Moved by Sorrow

"To me they have not changed a great deal. They still are my friends. The difference is that I recognize them by headstones instead of faces.

It may sound strange but one or two occasions I seemed to have heard voices of those I helped to bury. Once it was one of my own relatives. I would not try to explain, for folks could not understand."

Do sextons become hardened and unsympathetic from their constant contact with grief? Perhaps some do, but not Jamieson.

"If anything I am more easily moved by sorrow now than I was when I first took over the work," he explained. "There is hardly a burial service that does not bring a lump to my throat. But I am fortunate in that I can keep busy and in a measure forget.

Yet there are few men happier or more contented than I. In my work friendships seem deeper and more sincere and I have so many friends. I pray with them over the graves of their loved ones and I try to console them. Grief-stricken parents and relatives come to me almost daily for comfort, and their association means much to me."

Uncle John Jamieson has supervised 1,228 burials in White Rose Cemetery. There are only 508 graves when he started to work.

Tragedy, violence, hatred and romance, along with an occasional touch of comedy, are woven into the history of White Rose Cemetery. Back of every headstone is a story–and Uncle John knows them all.

The most beautiful romance in the sixteen-acre burial plot is centered around an engaged couple separated by death more than half century ago. But the separation was only for eight years and the two were buried side by side on a single cemetery lot.

There are no more graves on the lot. Uncle John calls them his sweethearts' graves and though burial took place long before he became sexton he knows the story by heart.

Back in 1873 a young fellow by the name of Thompson was engaged to marry a girl by the name of Sallie Presley," he recounted. "They were fine young folks, both of them, and the entire town mourned when the girl died shortly before the date set for the wedding."

"Thompson, of course, was heart broken. He went to the girl's father and asked to be allowed to buy the burial lot that would become the resting place of himself and the woman he was to have married."

"When I die I want to be buried beside her," he requested, "and I want our gravestones to be identical. Then I wan an iron fence built around the lot and I want the gate to be locked and the key thrown away."

"That was in 1873. Thompson died in 1881 at the age of 36. Some say he was unable to survive his grief. At any rate his body was laid to rest beside that of his sweetheart, and the headstone and iron fence were erected in accordance with his wishes. The tiny gate is locked–and on one ever recalls having seen the key. It would be easy, of course, to step over the low fence. But, except for the caretaker, few people ever had trod on the sweethearts' burial lot."

In another part of the cemetery three gravestones tell the strange story of two men and a woman brought together after death. Uncle John tells the story:

"There was a prominent couple here who had taken a young chap into their home to care for and educate. The man and his wife were devoted to each other and both of them had a high regard for the young man.

"When the husband died his widow was almost prostrated with grief and vowed she would never love another."

"If I should marry again", she told me, "I wouldn't deserve to be buried on the same lot with him."

"But the years passed and she married the young man she and her husband had helped to educate. They were very happy but the wife was troubled and came to me for advice."

"I said once that if I ever remarried I didn't want to be buried next to my first husband," she said. "But after all, it doesn't seem right that we must be separated. What shall I do?"

"I told her that my solution of the problem would be to bury all three just as close together in death as they had been in life."

"She seemed please with my suggestion and I am sure she would be happy if she could see the three graves now. She is buried in the center of her first husband on her right and her second husband on her left."

There was a touch of humor in the strange request of Oscar Pabst, early Wills Point druggist who died in 1909.

Pabst's wife preceded him in death by several years and after her burial when he erected a headstone over her grave he also ordered for himself.

"He spoke English brokenly", Jamieson recalled, " and when we discussed plans for his headstone he called it a dingus."

"I want a big dingus set up right here", he told me, indicating a spot at one side of the burial lot, "and I want it to be real rough granite so the boys can's sharpen their knives on it."

"The headstone was erected a few days later, but several years passed before Pabst died. He and his wife rest side by side."

Violence brought a number of early Wills Point residents to these resting places in White Rose Cemetery. Seven were suicides. Some were victims of shooting affrays.

C. E. Gilmore, a former Wills Point publisher and a member of the State Railroad Commission, was buried here. People from all part of the State attended his funeral. Another funeral that brought crowds from a widely scattered area was that of Buck W. Wynn, who was buried on November 1. Wynn was one of the oldest active members of the Texas bar.

Uncle John has observed that in the last few years mourners control their grief better than formerly.

"There was a time," he said, "when at nearly every burial service someone had hysterics. That is almost a thing of the past thought I know that the sorrow is just as hard to bear. In fact it harder when we do not give way to our emotions."

Uncle John never has buried a member of his own family, though he has lost two brothers, a sister-in-law, two grandchildren and a great-grandchild. His wife and five children and a son–are still living.

Jamieson's cottage home adjoins the cemetery and all of his children live near by. On Sunday, they will all gather at the family home to celebrate the elderly couple's forty-ninth wedding anniversary.

 

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