My mother raised me with a healthy enjoyment of cemeteries. She was raised only a few houses from her town’s cemetery. I was often taken to cemeteries to visit the dead, familial and otherwise.
I enjoy the memorials. Some are creative. Some are beautiful. I enjoy the handcut headstones and footstones. Some graves are tended while others suffer neglect–even abuse. The “mow-able” cemeteries with their flat headstones and footstones, level to the ground so that the cemeteries is mower friendly bore me.
If I had had children, I wouldn’t have created a new name to make my child’s name memorable. I’d have visited an old cemetery to see old names that have faded out of use.
I’m quite curious about some of the graves. “There’s a story here” is a comment that I often end up making.
Who was Judge Scruggs? What was he notable for, beyond the obvious achievement of becoming part of a respectable profession? Was he a founding father of Denton? Who was the stonemason that created such a lovely piece of cemetery art? I’d have needed to have spent a lot more time in Denton to get my answers.
Memorializing a Judge
This particular cemetery dates back to the 1860s. Denton was incorporated in 1866.
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