As we await the manufacture of 1000 new headstones for the Dallas City Cemetery, I found it interesting to reflect on the digits involved in this quest. So, with some help of AI, I created the following list of particulars related to the Who, What, When, Why & Where of the 2097 permanent residents of this Paupers Cemetery.
I do not yet have an estimated date of delivery, but it is clear that they won’t arrive this summer or until at least the late fall. I must admit that I’m a little more than relieved that they won’t be arriving in August, for the weather is so inhospitable.
Logistics
I’ve spent nearly a decade considering the logistics of this mammoth task, and the implementation methodology that will create the least amount of mayhem. Imagine receiving 1000 flagstones that are dropped at the curb of your home. They only fit together in a particular order, like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle. But each piece weighs 17 pounds, meaning you just received 8.5-tons of an almost 18-ton jigsaw puzzle. The stones must be transported between 1-3 American football fields to their final destination. You’ve requested that they be stacked in the numerical order but have no assurance that will happen.
By the way, the yard hasn’t been leveled. Dirt, ant hills, debris and weeds obscure existing objects that are needed to properly geolocate them to their final destination.
If each piece of flagstone isn’t laid on the pallet correctly, you will end up searching through all 18-tons of stone for the one you need. There is no guarantee that the other 1097 pieces will ever arrive, so you just have to be agile and know that all the planning in the world won’t make the process go smoothly.
Like Antoni Gaudi’s masterpiece, Sagrada Familia, past events mean that you are working with a subset of the data. The original architect is dead, and his models have been destroyed. You have modern technology on your side, which is the only reason you’ve gotten as far as you have. Yet, you can only hope that all of your calculations will inevitably bring the spires of the dome together in the right place.
Gaudi’s Basilica was 44 years into construction at the time of his death 100 years ago. Less than 6 years later our cemetery received its first burial. His work remains incomplete, just as ours does. His is currently scheduled for final completion in 2041.
So, the race is on! Antoni Gaudi, I challenge you to a race to see which of our projects can be completed first. lol
I have both of these items on my bucket list to see completed before I die. Fingers crossed that I live to check them off!
By the Numbers
There currently 2097 confirmed burials, 1000 markers on order and 21 already replaced by the family.
There are an additional 35 potential burials with unknown locations. They are not counted in the total at this time. They may have been reinterred somewhere else or might lay within the cemetery in an unmarked grave.
By the Decades
1930s - 1481 Burials (72.1%)
1940s - 282 Burials (13.7%)
1950s - 72 Burials (3.5%)
1960s - 39 Burials (1.8%)
1970s - 110 Burials (5.3%)
Unk - 70 Burials (3.4%)
Most Common Places of Death
1002 - Parkland Hospital/Woodlawn (includes 278 stillborn)
177 - Bradford Memorial Hospital
116 - Hutchins Convalescent Home
75 - St Paul
43 - Baylor Hospital
21 - Hope Cottage
Unnatural Deaths
Unnatural causes (external causes): 171 records. (includes homicide, suicide, drowning, burns, poisoning, train/railroad incidents, falls/struck injuries with context, exposure, and explicitly “accidental” cases)
Homicide: 24
Suicide: 18
Drowning: 8
Burns: 29
Poisoning (incl. morphine/rat poison): 16
Train/Railroad incidents: 19
“Accidental” (explicitly stated): 9
Stab/Knife: 9
Hanging/Strangulation: 7
Exposure: 5
Gun (subset, for reference): 31
In Barcelona, the Sagrada Família shows how devotion can stretch across centuries, each generation adding its own stone to an unfinished prayer. In Rome, the Forum endures as a broken but undeniable record of what a people once valued. Fragments that are still allowed to speak because they were allowed to remain.
Dallas tells a different story, one written in what has been lost as much as what stands. “Veni, vidi, vici” becomes a challenge here: to see clearly, to understand what time has already taken, and to claim a quieter kind of victory by choosing, at last, what must endure and is too precious to just become dust in the wind.