By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
A group dedicated to preserving, restoring and protecting one of the city’s oldest cemeteries has been awarded a grant for further work.
Mary Lee Taylor and RT Johnson Collins, Texas Historical Foundation directors, presented a check for $3,150 to Los Amigos de la Loma, a group established to look after the historic Cementerio Loma de la Cruz, during the organization’s meeting on Feb. 8.
“We’re very grateful that you took the time to evaluate our proposal and award us this money. It’s going to go a long way for us. This is our first grant. This is the first time we’ve tried getting a grant and now we should be able to do a little bit more work and try to get some more donations as well to begin another phase of work at the cemetery,” Los Amigos President Anna Chapman said in accepting the grant award.
Chapman told the 830 Times that Los Amigos was notified it had received the $3,150 grant from the Texas Historical Foundation Jack R. Wahlquist Director’s Endowment “to fund materials and repair of existing metal crosses and the lifting of tombstones.”
Chapman notified Los Amigos members of the grant award, which she described as “a wonderful blessing,” in a memo she emailed.
“We were awarded a total of $3,150 out of the $5,000 we requested. It is still good as we need every penny we can get. For now, it is time to roll up our sleeves and get to work on our Phase 2 project. At our last visit to the cemetery, we took pictures of 10 more monuments that need to be lifted and of course the metal crosses that we need to repair,” Chapman wrote.
The cemetery is located near the foot of “La Loma de la Cruz,” also known as Round Mountain, a distinctive geological feature just south of the Del Rio city limits.
Chapman said she remembers visiting the old cemetery as a child in the company of her grandfather.
According to an historical marker placed on the grounds, the land for the cemetery site was donated by one of Del Rio’s founders, Doña Paula Losoya Taylor Rivers, in 1884 as a place for the people of Del Rio’s Mexican colony to bury their dead. The last burial took place on the grounds in 1934.
The first pastor of Del Rio’s Mexican-American Methodist Church, Ramon V. Palomares, is buried on the grounds, as are three former Seminole Scouts who served with the U.S. Army.
Over the years, the cemetery has fallen into disrepair and has been the target of vandalism. It has sustained damage from intermittent flooding as well.
When Los Amigos was founded, its members worked with former County Commissioner Pct. 1 Ramiro Ramon and the current Pct. 1 Commissioner Martin Wardlaw to clean up the grounds of overgrown vegetation and to beautify the entrance to the cemetery.
The first phase of the group’s restoration project included the purchase and installation of two bronze plaques affixed to the columns of the arch over the cemetery’s front gate.
Chapman said the first phase also included the lifting of 12 fallen tombstones.
“This expense depleted a big portion of our funds. A brown bag hamburger sale was held for the purpose of raising funds needed to hire a contractor to lift and cement broken headstones such as the Woodmen of the World and other beautiful monuments that had fallen and some affected by the flood of 1932 and vandalism during the years the cemetery was closed,” Chapman wrote in the application for the THF grant.
She said the second phase of the restoration project “consisted of lifting 10 tombstones, installing 200 wrought iron crosses, adding four rustic benches (on the cemetery grounds) and repairing the bases of approximately 200 metal crosses.”
Chapman also said members of Los Amigos have contributed a total of 386 volunteer hours, including work to clean and landscape the area around the front gate, from January 2022 to June 2022.
Chapman said the cemetery is still visited by student groups from the local public school district, as well as visitors from out-of-town and leadership classes organized by the Del Rio Chamber of Commerce.
“The cemetery welcomes approximately 5,000 visitors a year who stroll the peaceful grounds, attend a tour or special event and come to treasure not just the cemetery, but all of Texas’ rich history,” Chapman wrote.
Chapman said Los Amigos would continue working to raise funds for additional projects at the cemetery.
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