03/07/2022
Name Confusion #1:
Have you ever been to the nearby Brewster Bravo Cemetery?
To get to this often forgotten, tucked away remote cemetery you have to drive on a very narrow one lane "road" atop a levee with steep sides and a water canal on one side for half a mile, then turn right at the first dirt road, then turn right again at an unmarked dirt road that eventually opens into a wide parking area in front of the cemetery.
Purchased by Deputy William Brewster (1869-1953), the son of Dr. William J. T. G. Brewster and Minerva Singleterry (who was the daughter of former slave Matilda Hicks and stepdaughter of Nathaniel Jackson) from Esteban Bravo (1854-1924) the ranchito cemetery was part of the then adjoining Bravo Ranch.
Hence the cemetery is called the Brewster Bravo Cemetery.
The first burial occurred before 1912 and was that of a baby of David and Emma Box Bravo (grave is unlocated). Deputy Brewster, who purchased the cemetery, is also buried there.
Donated to the Santa Ana Wildlife Refuge in 1978 by a descendant, the Brewster family legally retains all burial rights to the cemetery. The last burial was a Bravo descendant in 2019 (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/196935371/encarnacion-o-aleman). Many markers of the 85 documented burials are unreadable.
There is a January 1980 Hidalgo County Historical Society Cemetery Survey that available online. It is misnamed the BREWSTER RANCH CEMETERY survey and has proliferated and caused many genealogical problems for those not personally familiar with the areas and the various names of each cemetery.
The internments listed in the misnamed Brewster Ranch Cemetery Survey are in the Eli Jackson Cemetery and NOT, as the title and cemetery description claim, of the Brewster Bravo cemetery.
The name confusion is longstanding even among local family members.
Name confusion is very common with small cemeteries. Much like people have many names- a birth name, a formal legal name, an everyday name, a shortened name, a nickname from childhood, a nickname only family uses, etc- so to do cemeteries.
The Eli Jackson Cemetery has been known by many names through time by various descendant family groups, in newspapers and in county death certificates. The Jackson Cemetery, the Brewster Cemetery, the Brewster-Jackson Cemetery, the cemetery al rio, etc.
The name of Eli Jackson Cemetery was formalized by Diana Cardenas, a direct descendant of Eli, in the application she submitted for the cemetery to be recognized by the Texas State Historical Commission in 2004 and on the Historical Marker she wrote the wording for. Her grandmother and former cemetery caretaker, Elvira Reyna Cardenas (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/206005571/elvira-cardenas), the most recent person to be interred here, was interviewed extensively for the infamous misnamed 1980 cemetery census and perhaps is responsible for the wrong title.
No matter the name this cemetery is loved by many and is rich with history.
