The sky is crystal blue over Evergreen Cemetery, and a soft wind bears both the burnt-syrup smell of roasting coffee beans and the low moans of distant train horns and the crowing of backyard roosters closer at hand.
Houston Texans and Astros mementoes adorn some graves; graves of children are decorated with statuettes of Minions and Mario, Minnie Mouse and My Little Pony; still others, those of adults, stand before offerings of whiskey or beer.
The moment we forget them, […] then they are truly gone.”The wisdom of those words is borne out by the larger history of Evergreen Cemetery, one in which Mexican Americans figure most recently, but not entirely.
Labor groups and Woodmen of the World: this is Houston’s home of the workingmen’s dead, in short.
You won’t catch a whiff of roasting coffee beans there, nor will you hear the crow of a nearby yardbird.