The location of the Smith Family Cemetery is in Dallas, Texas, south of E. Illinois Ave. and west of Julius Schepps Freeway. The cemetery actually fronts on Mayforge Ave., but the street address is 3820 E. Illinois Ave. At our first visit, there was an old fence around a few original tombstones near a grove of trees. The owner had been assumed to be the former Wilmer-Hutchins School District (WHSD) and abandoned school administration buildings were nearby. In reality, descendant Donna D. Spears’ search of the history of ownership in Dallas County Official Records showed that 0.22 acre was designated in 1877 as a “family graveyard” for the heirs of Thomas and Polly Smith. Donna and husband, Joe Spears, spent an unknown amount of time and money in a court battle with an owner subsequent to WHSD to re-establish the cemetery boundaries. In 2016 they erected a nice black chain-link fence and installed a granite monument listing the known and suspected burials.
The improvements made by the Smith Family remained intact as of Mike and Marsha Leach’s visit in the summer of 2018. They observed the black chain link fence enclosing a much larger area than the old fence that had just surrounded the tombstones. They noted the monument installed by the Smith Family.
At Dustin Durrett’s September 2024 visit the only remnant of the fence was a post that held a sign with the telephone number of the Smith Family Cemetery Association.
Sources:
-Reports by Dallas County Pioneer Association members.
-Jason Rivas. “Respecting Pioneers Through Preservation.” The Medallion Fall 2019: 12-13.
-Julieta Chiquillo. “How an 1877 deed settled a fight over a Dallas cemetery.” Dallas Morning News, 13 Apr. 2016.
