- - - - HISTORY OF IMMACULATE CONCEPTION CEMETERY - - - -

OKLAHOMA COUNTY OK

Immaculate Conception Cemetery sits in the site of the original Immaculate Conception Church. During the Great Depression the church was closed and the building sold to a Methodist congregation in nearby Wheatland. In 1952, Immaculate Conception Church reopened at a new location on SW 29th St. Will Rogers World Airport, other buildings, highways and streets now surround the cemetery where ripening wheat fields once waved in the Oklahoma wind.

On March 2, 1892, James Dolan and Mary A. Dolan, his wife, of Oklahoma County, Oklahoma Territory, conveyed two acres of the NW corner of NW 1/4 of Sec. 23, R4, T11 to Bishop Theophle Meersheart of Logan County, Oklahoma Territory for $1.00. The land was to be used for church, school, and cemetery purposes. The donors of the land requested in the deed that one lot be reserved or set apart in the cemetery for themselves and their children. The deed was filed five years later in 1897.

Many of the first white settlers in the area were Catholic and had immigrated from Conception, Missouri resulting in their choice of a name for their church and cemetery. As was customary in those days, the cemetery was located next to the church. Margaret Greeley, mother-in-law to James Dolan was the first to be buried in the cemetery; her stone reads 1819-1890. It was about the time that James Dolan donated the land for the church and cemetery. A 1964 canvass listed 158 names in the cemetery. Nearby was a pond, or tank as it was called in those days. Peter Wolf was one of the founding members of the church and was in charge of the cemetery, caring for it until his death in 1936. He was given a free lot but didn't pick out a spot until he was 80 years old. The Wolf family has tended the cemetery for over 100 years except for a period of about a year when a parishioner named Jack Turk acted as caretaker. Many who lay at rest there have family ties to one another. In 1998, Peter and Louella Wolf of Wheatland developed a map of the cemetery. Plots are available to members of the founding families and to members of the church.

{Information obtained from OK County Cemetery Index - compiled by OK County HCE Genealogy Group, page 47.}