Blind Lemon Memorial Cemetery - Wortham, TX
Posted by: 
WalksfarTX
N 31° 47.811 W 096° 27.699
14R E 740323 N 3520724
Also known as: Wortham Black Cemetery
Waymark Code: WMQBDF
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 01/28/2016
Views: 6
From Find A Grave:
Lemon's mysterious demise at age 36 that December, on a Chicago street during one of the city's worst-ever snowstorms, gave rise to the legend that he froze to death after getting lost. Other rumors claimed he was hit by a car or killed by robbers. The 2010 discovery of his death certificate (it had been filed under the wrong first name) settled the matter prosaically: he collapsed from heart failure outside his apartment building, the underlying cause being "probably chronic myocarditis".
Paramount paid for his body to be shipped back to Texas for burial at the Wortham Negro Cemetery (now Blind Lemon Jefferson Memorial Cemetery). Contrary to the sentiments of "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean", his plot went unmarked and unrecorded. A Texas Historical Marker (1967) and granite headstone (1997) could only be erected in what a few people remembered as the general area of his resting place.