Cole Cemetery - Ardmore, OK
N 34° 13.688 W 097° 06.137
14S E 674791 N 3789079
The Cole Cemetery is a small family cemetery of over sixty burials on the old Cole family property off of Indian Hill Rd, a bit northeast of Ardmore, OK. The cemetery is still active.
Waymark Code: WM11N41
Location: Oklahoma, United States
Date Posted: 11/17/2019
Views: 2
Please respect the private property around the cemetery. The gate is locked, but there are numbers to call, and another gate (unlocked) awaits you down the dirt track that leads to the cemetery. It's a nice, short walk in the woods to reach the cemetery.
Charlsie Foust Allen's "Ardmore", in Arcadia's Images of America series, has a photo of George Washington Cole, his wife, Nancy Jane (Williams), and their family. The Williams and Cole families were among the "intruders" in what was then the Chickasaw Nation: While the Chickasaw owned the land, they established a permit system and invited skilled workers into the territory. Many of the "intruders" were permitted to become farmers or ranchers so long as they occupied the land that they worked. As they couldn't conduct legal contracts in the I.T., though, G.W. Cole and Nancy Jane Williams actually had to travel some miles south to Gainesville, TX in order to marry. They farmed cotton in this area, and raised ten children. After statehood (1907), Mr. Cole purchased this land, and "Ardmore" provides a blurb:
There was a small graveyard, the Yates Cemetery, located on the acreage when G.W. purchased the land, and that is where he and his wife along with several children and grandchildren are buried. G.W. offered 10 acres around this little cemetery to the county commissioners to preserve the burial ground. After G.W.'s death, the name changed to Cole Cemetery.
There is at least one Findagrave memorial page (Leanna Segler) where there is a reference to the "Yates Cemetery", but the name "Yates" does not appear on any headstones. If any Yates family members are here, they are buried in unmarked graves, or their final resting places are noted by fieldstones. Otherwise, the earliest death dates to be found are from the 1890s. Note that a few of the Findagrave listings are spurious or duplicates.
The book closes with a final photo featuring Nancy Jane Cole, telling a story of how one of their children, Molly, literally died in her arms as the Coles stopped to let a train pass as they made their way to Ardmore one morning. They never knew if Molly was scared to death by the train's whistle, or whether there was just something wrong with her.