Bear Creek Cemetery Foundation invites you to attend a reception Sunday, April 19, from 2- 4 pm. We are celebrating the completion of 36 newly repaired grave markers in the cemetery.
Collin County Historical Commission awarded six grants to Bear Creek Cemetery Foundation over the last five years. Two of the grants were used to install iron fencing on the east and south sides of the cemetery. Four of the grants were used to repair, level and clean grave markers in the cemetery. We started working on our project on February 14, 2015. Men from the Empire Masonic Lodge 586, Jack Roman, David Stanfield and Shawn Sutherland, helped us dig up the bases of the markers to be repaired and leveled. Texas Cemetery Restoration LLC worked for two days repairing and re-setting the markers. Snow, sleet and rain stopped the work until the middle of March. We finished March 23, 2015. In the last four years we have repaired 117 grave markers. The cemetery hasn’t looked this good in a very long time. It had been abandoned for several decades. This cemetery was at risk of fading away.
April 4, 2015 members of the Boy Scout Troop 1814 came to mow, trim underbrush and clean markers. The members and leaders who helped us were Gary Chappell, Joe Chappell, Walter Barr, Chris Kane, Cooper Kane, and Jackson Kane. Last June this Boy Scout Troop installed a large new flag pole at the front gate of Bear Creek Cemetery. One of the members, Dyllan Brammlett, was in charge of the project as he was working for his Eagle Scout Award. They also mowed the cemetery and did some landscaping around the base of the flag pole. The flag pole and a new American flag were donated by the Wylie Chapter of the Woodmen of the World.
Bear Creek Cemetery was designated a Texas Historical Cemetery in 2005. We have mapped the cemetery and have photographed all of the grave markers.
Future projects include: fencing the west and north sides of the cemetery, adding replacement markers for those too faded to read, re-leveling some of the smaller grave markers, leveling the dirt where graves have collapsed and where animals have dug holes, improving the driveway, and cutting down dead trees. We would like to have a ground penetrating radar survey performed to locate unmarked graves.
We are in the process of writing a book about the cemetery and the people who are buried there. If you have pictures or any information about the people who are buried at Bear Creek Cemetery, please contact us at: beckybabyfeet@verizon.net or call 972-463-7523.
Please consider attending our reception, joining our foundation, doing volunteer work, or making a donation to continue taking care of this very old historic cemetery.