Texas Graveyards: A Cultural Legacy - Paperback

by Terry G. Jordan (Author)

Where more poignantly than in a small country graveyard can a traveler fathom the flow of history and tradition? During the past twenty years, Terry G. Jordan has traveled the back roads and hidden trails of rural Texas in search of such cemeteries. With camera in hand, he has visited more than one thousand cemeteries created and maintained by the Anglo-American, black, Indian, Mexican, and German settlers of Texas. His discoveries of sculptured stones and mounds, hex signs and epitaphs, intricate landscapes and unusual decorations represent a previously unstudied and unappreciated wealth of Texas folk art and tradition. Texas Graveyards not only marks the distinct ethnic and racial traditions in burial practices but also preserves a Texas legacy endangered by changing customs, rural depopulation, vandalism, and the erosion of time.

Author Biography

A sixth-generation Texan, the late Terry G. Jordan held the Walter Prescott Webb Chair in History and Ideas in the Department of Geography at the University of Texas at Austin. His many publications include Texas Log Buildings and German Seed in Texas Soil, both published by the University of Texas Press.