Photo and story courtesy Community a Impact
Located in a field of brush just west of the city limits near Old Hockley Road, the Turner-Thomas Cemetery is the final resting place for two families who helped lay the foundation for what would eventually become present-day Magnolia.

Local historian Celeste Graves chronicled the journey of the two families in her 2004 book, “Magnolia Memories.” The Turners, originally from Ireland, and the Thomases, from Florida, settled in the area in the mid-to-late 1800s.

In the 1860s, John L. Turner, his wife, Lydia, and their five children traveled from Mississippi to Texas via ferry and covered wagons to search for land, along with a handful of families, including Nathan Thomas, who eventually married one of the Turner children, Rosie, Graves said.

“With high hopes, they arrived at a small open glade about one mile north of the present site of Magnolia,” Graves wrote. “The first animal they saw was a mink, so they called it Mink Prairie.”

Accounts vary on the origins of the town’s name, and Graves wrote the area may have also been named for Joseph Mink, one of the early settlers of an area colonized by Stephen F. Austin in the 1840s. The area was later renamed from Mink Prairie to Mink in 1885, then to Magnolia in 1903, according to early post office documents.

The Turners quickly settled down and began the area’s first orchard, selling fruits and vegetables throughout Montgomery County. In the late 1800s, the family donated a portion of its land to build the area’s first one-room schoolhouse. John L. Turner died in 1899 and was buried in what is now the Turner-Thomas Cemetery, along with Lydia, Nathan and Rosie.

After over a century, the cemetery had fallen into disrepair. For many years, area residents had kept up the grounds and gravestones but have since moved, leaving no one to maintain the area, according to Peggy Sommerville, the great-great-granddaughter of Nathan and Rosie.

Earlier this year, the Magnolia Historical Society began work in conjunction with Montgomery County Constable David Hill and local youth organizations on a project to clear brush and clean up the area around the cemetery and install a new gate with the names of the families in wrought metal.

“The Magnolia Historical Society has taken that [cemetery] over to take care of it,” Graves said. “It’s pretty much covered by trees, so it’s hard to see, and we have to get permission to go through the yard to get to it. Hopefully [in the future], it will be cleared out between the cemetery and the road so people can see it.”