Johnson Family Cemetery

It is interesting that so many Christadelphians, Johnson family members and others, are buried in the cemetery on the Pedernales. It is quite natural, though, when it is realized that the first family members interred there were indeed Christadelphians. Public interest in the place, of course, has to do with political prominence of some of the family members, notably the late President, and not with a connection to a small and obscure religious group.

I am reminded that some prominent brothers and sisters from the past are buried there — including Bro. Sam Johnson, of course, and also Bre. S. H. Oatman and T. F. Keele. Among them too was Bro. Clarence Martin, married to one of Bro. Johnson’s daughters. Bro. Martin was in early life a prominent attorney and judge, and he abandoned political ambitions in accepting the Truth.

A Bro. and Sis. Isaac Forsythe, buried there, happen to be the grandparents of the late Sis. Marie Banta and Sis. Ellen Styles of Michigan — so it is a small Christadelphian world.

I have had some correspondence with descendants of Bro. S. H. Oatman — who are not Christadelphians. They were puzzled as to why their great-grandfather was buried in the Johnson family cemetery. They had conjectured that possibly Sis. Oatman had been Lyndon Johnson’s nanny. But it was nothing like that. The Christadelphian members of the Johnson family were well aware that Bro. Clement Oatman had led their father and grandfather to the Truth. Bro. Sheppard Oatman was Bro. Clem’s nephew and had himself been an active teacher of the Word.

There are also other cemeteries in central Texas where numbers of Christadel­phians are buried. Any casual observer must notice the sentiments engraved upon many of the headstones. I have particularly noticed this in cemeteries in Rockdale and Lampasas County, Texas, where numbers of Christadelphians rest. The engraved sentiments are characteristic expressions of our hope, and reminders that the dead in Christ will soon live again. In their quiet way these burial places — whether in Brooklyn, N. Y.; Pomona, California; England; or Australia, witness to the hope of believers who have lived in these last centuries.