We owe this quarter’s HTC Highlight to the dedication of Christine Robinson Jama, a descendant of Pflugerville’s early African American community who made it her mission to officially designate the resting place of her ancestors as a Historic Texas Cemetery.
St. Mary’s Cemetery sits on one acre in the historic colored addition of Pflugerville, an independent neighborhood of Black landowners that was platted in 1910. Lots were sold to Black families employed by the Pflugerville cotton industry and ice factory who were barred from living in town by racial segregation laws. Many original settlers of the Colored Addition, like the McDade, Robinson, and Russell families, purchased cemetery plots in St. Mary’s when it was established in the 1920s by community leaders. A century later, descendants continue to lovingly decorate and care for their family plots. One unique example is the Russell family’s decoration of their family plot with a homemade sign that reads “Russell’s Place to Rest.”
Though originally deeded as the Pflugerville Colored Cemetery, community members historically referred to it as “St. Mary’s", especially when giving funeral homes directions to the cemetery grounds across from the original St. Mary’s Baptist Church.
Christine Robinson Jama vividly remembers attending the funeral of her grandfather, Albert “Buck” McDade, in 1969. Mr. McDade was traveling by car to a nearby town to deliver benefit funds collected by Pflugerville’s Black community when he was fatally hit by another motorist. As a little girl, Christine remembered how families mourned their loved ones inside the neighborhood church, followed by the short yet emotional funeral procession across the dirt road that led to eternal rest at St. Mary’s Cemetery.
Christine has followed in her grandfather’s giving spirit by working with a new generation of benefit organizations to honor veterans buried at St. Mary’s and the unmarked graves of the less fortunate. After following through with the Historic Texas Cemetery designation, Christine is now working with the THC’s Historical Markers Program and the Travis County Historical Commission on an official marker for St. Mary’s Cemetery that will tell the story of her ancestors for future generations.
