Castleman Cemetery Cleanup

Flash, the cemetery is now accessble albiet through a fence and some rough terrain, thanks to the effort of Adalberto Netro and his wife Adelia, the owner and operator of Donna's Cozy Cafe in Flatonia. Hopefully, after a suvey and fenceing we will have unrestricted access; soon.

If you go by and take a look pleae let me know < [email protected] >

This page contains newsletters concerning the ongoing effort to resurect the Castleman cemetery near Flatonia Texas. see Texas Shame

2 February 2008 letter #1

Greetings all interested parties in the effort to clean up and maintain the Castleman Cemetery at Flatonia, Fayette County, Texas. It is going to be a labor of love, in other words you better love adversity to participate.

I believe the first step is to confirm the ownership of the cemetery and the access easement purchased by Faye Goethe (pronounced Gatey), a great great granddaughter of Sylvanus. Even though law allows us access to it I believe it would behoove us to establish ownership if possible.

Some years ago I located letters at LaGrange chronicling her effort to purchase said properties and have located and acquired copies of Documents (Deeds) showing that she did indeed purchase from Paul & Agnes Machalac, (County of Fayette deed book Volume 304 page 276) the property enclosing the cemetery and the section of land lying between the cemetery and the property line of John & Francis Tupa, lying directly to the North of said cemetery; and the deed (County of Fayette deed book Volume 231 page 635) showing her purchase of the driveway to State route 96 from the Tupas.

I recently went to the tax recorders office at LaGrange to try race any possible changes and could find none in the short time allowed (The clerk could not locate anything).

I have been trying to contact her son in Austin but he has not answered my message as yet. I cannot be sure that the fax number I have is correct.

I believe we can do this and we can find a way to keep it maintained, it is a small cemetery. My biggest concern is if we are successful, it will leave the cemetery exposed to vandals unless we can find a way to secure it.

Any and all of these letters and documents are available to any one of you on request at no cost. Just send me a snail mail address.

I am open to all/any suggestions.       Asa

4 February 2008 letter #2

There are a couple of corrections and comments.

In putting together all the letters of Faye Goethe I found a couple of mistakes. One being the deed to her from Tupa. I had read it wrongly as Vol. # 231 PG# 635. The correct numbers are Vol. # 291 PG # 636

Secondly, in re-reading I found where she had planned to donate the land to the county when all was accomplished.

I don't know what occurred but it seems that she was not able to complete her plans to gravel the road etc. possibly she also was not able to complete the donation. These are just a couple of items that must be discovered and, by getting the copies of her letters and the deeds into other hands, yours I hope, the issues will be resolved in some way. Two or more, many more, pairs of eyes read and understand better than one.

I have made up 10 packs of her letters and deeds to send to any one that would like to do this.

Some of you may already have some of these documents and remember I collected all this over 6 years ago so there may have been recent papers I do not have.

This lady REALLY wanted to finish this project and I hope we can do it for her.

Asa