DOHERTY

by MARY LOUISE BAILEY
Special to the Hays Free Press

The Barton Cemetery Association honored longtime Buda resident Pearl Doherty for 80 years of service during a special ceremony in the parlor of her new home at Deer Creek Nursing Center in Wimberley.

Joining her at the ceremony where friends and family from around the region, including PeeWee and Ellen Doherty; Tooter and Stella Doherty; Joe Doherty; Roberta and Jack Starlin; Marilyn Green; Pearl’s sister Loyce Yarber, formerly of Buda; Barton Cemetery Association president Bob Barton; association secretary/treasurer Paula Green Michaud; Katherine Bailey; and Mary Louise Porter Bailey.

Born in San Marcos, Pearl moved with her husband, Cotton, to Buda in 1930. Among her children’s earliest memories were days of helping their mother dig Johnson grass off the graves at Barton Cemetery where many of their relatives are buried.

In addition to doing the physical labor of keeping up the cemetery, Pearl Doherty has also been on the association’s board for decades.  She does the record-keeping of burials and has helped make the decisions that have shaped the cemetery over the years, especially at the Cemetery Association meetings held on the second Sunday in June each year on the cemetery grounds.

Pearl Doherty and her family love the cemetery, which was officially created by deed in 1881, although there had been burials there since 1873. Said Doherty, “It is a sacred place for us.”