Goen Cemetery - Palo Pinto County, TX
N 32° 42.824 W 098° 05.036
14S E 585852 N 3619923
The Goen Cemetery is a small, active family cemetery of nearly forty burials, located southeast of Mineral Wells on Dobbs Valley Rd in rural Palo Pinto County, TX.
Waymark Code: WM11Y2G
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 01/08/2020
Views: 1
L.E. Goen and his wife, Mary, were early area settlers, and this cemetery serves them, their descendants, and their extended family through marriage. Jeff Clark's excellent "Texas Tabernacle"
site has a blurb about the cemetery and the pioneer days when relations with the local Native Americans weren't very genial. Presumably, the Goen homestead was nearby, and Jeff's relevant page notes that "Grandma Mary" related what would have been called "thrilling" stories about them and their neighbors assembling in one house to deal with raids, and how the men would take their guns with them to church in Soda Springs (about three miles southeast), just in case of trouble.
A very notable burial here is that of Captain Robert W. Goen, Jr, who was killed in a bomber collision on a raid on Greece during World War II. He is buried next to his parents in the front of the cemetery, his final resting place marked by an impressive brick grave cover that could have been manufactured from bricks from the nearby Acme Brick plant.
Near the back of the cemetery is a memorial in the form of a government-issued headstone for Thomas Sanford Goen, who was lost in a helicopter crash in the Bay of Tonkin (Vietnam) while serving in the U.S. Navy during the war. His body was not recovered.