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| "At first
glance, the Garden of Angels looks like just another cemetery. Oh,
but it's not. The Garden and the story behind are both touching and...
chilling...." - Author |
| Photo
courtesy William Holmes, June 2005 |
June 26, 2005
Sunday
This
evening I drove out Mosier Valley Rd, where it intersects with Trinity
Boulevard, to see a roadside memorial called The Garden of Angels.
Mosier Valley is a cluster of weatherworn houses, trailer homes and
miscellaneous small businesses at the end of Mosier Valley Road. The
original population in the late 1800s was freed blacks, and today
is still mostly black, some white, all working class to poor. No fancy
houses here. Mosier Valley Road itself is a narrow, bumpy, two-lane
stretch of asphalt that runs alongside railroad tracks. On one side
the road passes along fields cluttered with weeds and junk. The other
side of the road, beyond the tracks, is bordered by a huge pit, hundreds
of yards wide, lined with mountains of dark earth and large rocks
which give the place a forbidding look. A sign reads EARTH MOVERS
INC. On down a ways, on a corner by a house, a handwritten sign offers
goats for sale.
At the end of Mosier Valley Road, where it meets Trinity Blvd, is
a striking array of gleaming white crosses that seems out of place
in this drab and dirty area. This is the Garden of Angels. |
 |
| Photo
courtesy William Holmes, June 2005 |
| Here
and there, all over Texas, you see roadside crosses memorializing
someone killed in an accident. What makes the Garden of Angels different
is that it memorializes people who have been murdered. It began with
Amy Robinson. On February 15, 1998, she was 19, with the mental ability
of a 14 yr old, riding to work on her bicycle, when she was kidnapped
and killed by co-workers. Her body was dumped on the other side of
Trinity Blvd, near a tower. Her grandmother, Carolyn Barker, started
the garden with a cross for Amy. Others added crosses for local people
and some not so local, all of them murdered, until now one corner
of the intersection is full of crosses, plus a few bench memorials.
A metal fence encloses the crosses, a brick walkway, and a small pond
with goldfish. The crosses are arranged in uneven rows. Some of the
crosses are illustrated with pictures and at the foot of many of the
crosses lie small mementos of the person's life. |
| Photo
courtesy William Holmes, June 2005 |
| So
many of these murder victims were young, 20 yrs old or younger. Here
is a chilling reminder, five crosses, clustered together on the front
row, each with a youngster's picture, their first names - Noah, John,
Mary, Luke, Paul - and their last name: Yates. On a bench on the corner,
outside the fence, is another familiar name: Polly Klaas. I counted
54 crosses, including one for an unborn child. |
| Photo
courtesy William Holmes, June 2005 |
On
the other side of Mosier Valley Road are 32 more crosses, arranged
in two rows. And a gazebo in memory of a young fellow named Christopher.
Altogether, almost 90 victims of murder - the malicious killing of
one human by another. I don't know of any other such memorial in Texas.
Absolutely, it's a graphic sign of how violent humans can be, but
ironically, the fact that the memorial stands out so vividly and strangely,
is an implied reminder of how safe most of us actually are. When such
memorials are no longer striking and strange or when we stop noticing
at all, then we truly are in trouble.
Article and photos © William
Holmes |
| Texas
Escapes, in its purpose to preserve historic, endangered and vanishing
Texas, asks that anyone wishing to share their local history, stories,
landmarks and recent or vintage photos, please contact
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