I have been a parishioner since 2015 and am a member of the Order of St. Luke and the Women’s Spirituality Group. I was chairing the Palmer Library Committee when our work stopped abruptly in March 2020 due to COVID-19.

2020 was my first full year of retirement, and I decided to devote most of my time to an abandoned cemetery in the Eastex/Jensen corridor of North Houston. What I didn’t know then was this project, which I had worked on off and on since 2014, was to become my life’s work.

My two sisters and I organized the Westcott Cemetery Association, Inc. in 2018, to preserve this historic property, and we were granted nonprofit status a year later. In 2019-2020 we engaged McDoux Preservation LLC to complete the chain of title, and we learned that the cemetery had no clear owner and was classified as a vacant lot by the Harris County Tax Appraisal District.

Last year McDoux completed a Historic Texas Cemetery designation application to the Texas Historical Commission, which has now formalized the boundaries of the cemetery in county deed records and recognizes the property as a burial ground. To be more inclusive of all the families buried there, we worked with the Historical Commission’s Cemetery Preservation Program staff to change its name from “Westcott Cemetery” to “McDaniel Street Cemetery.” 

Our vision is to re-imagine the property’s role in the under-resourced Eastex/Jensen community by working with McDoux to create a master plan that integrates the conservation of the property with the goals of the Eastex Jensen Super Neighborhood 46. The master plan will provide a stepwise approach to appropriate historic conservation with a recommended implementation plan and schedule.

Last fall we retained an attorney to help us apply for conservatorship to take legal control of the cemetery this year. Once accomplished, we can move forward with the master plan and conservation of the natural and historical resources in the cemetery.

Caring for McDaniel Street Cemetery has given my life new meaning and purpose. The cemetery was established in the mid-1850s as an all-white pioneer homestead resource. Then, with the construction of the Eastex Freeway in the late 1950s, the community began to transition as white flight ensued, and it became predominantly Black and Latinx. I’ve come to believe that the project is not only a way to honor my ancestors (I’m the Westcott namesake in my family) but also a way to actively engage in and advocate for this diverse community. In doing so, I am learning to face and repair my white privilege.

The Pastor of New Bethlehem Missionary Baptist Church, one of the churches along Jensen Drive, is the president of the Super Neighborhood, and I am privileged to attend the monthly Zoom meetings over which he presides. Our neighbor across the road from the cemetery is Iglesia Vision Global, and I am just getting to know the Pastor there.

I am also very excited that Palmers are now part of this effort. Last year several Women’s Spirituality Group sisters, who had already given start-up contributions to our work, joined me in a visit to the property. Then, toward the end of the year, Barbara Hass and I paid a visit and she realized she had grown up with a family descendant who lived near Westcott Street! Now, Barbara is helping to create an oral history project for the cemetery, and I can imagine a time when Palmer families can join us on Serve Sundays to help with the property’s cleanup.

There is so much to look forward to! In December we were awarded a $45,000 challenge grant, which request a $1 to $1 match, by the Fondren Foundation in recognition that a shared maternal ancestor of Mrs. Walter Fondren, Jr. is buried there. We are up to this challenge, and this along with conservatorship, is my focus this year.

The cemetery was the catalyst that sparked the renewal for many wonderful things in this community and our mission to preserve and improve it for the benefit of its descendants and neighbors comes closer to fruition every day. A resting place for the people who created it more than a century and a half ago when the area was farmland, it will teem with life and new purpose, a greenspace for community enjoyment, a place of pride, serenity and peace.