Lipscomb County Cemeteries Page: 103
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History of the Fairmont Cemetery
By
Marlene Pierce and Dorothy Schoenhals
Dr. Charles E. White and wife Ora E.White deeded the land for the Fairmont
Cemetery in 1910. (1)
In 1921 or 1922, Mr. Frederick Harhausen and his sons took two wagons and
teams south of Vici, Oklahoma to get cedar trees. The trees were dug and
balled and the Harhausen family planted them around the four sides of the
cemetery and the circle drive. Another early settler, Mac Jones had a sled with
water barrels on it and he watered the trees and kept them alive until a
windmill and a water well were established. Mac Jones platted the cemetery
and his wife Myra was the first burial. (2). Mrs. John Byrd may have been the
one who furnished the water pipe system in exchange for a grave site for her
husband and herself. There are two hundred twenty of these original trees still
alive.
Several times a year the community men would gather together to remove
thistles from the trees. They didn't enjoy this work at all and the trees had
spread to the main cemetery roads. The caretaker Jess Pinckard agreed to trim
them and all the men brought saws and axes to trim the trees. (The community
women were very upset by the tree trimming) A later caretaker, Orville Sperry
worked in his spare time to trim and shape the trees. Today the 220 trees are
mushroom shaped and are a problem for the caretakers to keep trimmed.
Suggestions to allow the trees to grow in a natural shape are resisted by the
public. The unusual mushroom cedar shaped trees are appreciated by everyone
and the trees give a distinct character to our treeless Panhandle and the
beautiful Fairmont cemetery.
Some of the early cemetery board members were pioneers: Will Hennigh, W.P.
Freeman and Charles Larkey. Early caretakers were Jack Nagle (the first), J. A.
Pinckard, Albert Stevens, Homer Price, and Orville Sperry (23 years of
service). Other caretakers were Schibbelhute, Hessel Plain, Ramona Schilling,
Rod Williamson, Greg Frazier, Donald Schultz, Dan Carter and Mark Weaver.
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Kraft, LaVaun. Lipscomb County Cemeteries, book, April 2006; Lipscomb, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth36168/m1/103/?q=waller+county: accessed June 10, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Wolf Creek Heritage Museum.