Kemp Open House, opening a portal to a pioneer
past that thousands of people passed through over the
decades. Wandering among the restored pioneer-period
buildings and taking in the sights and sounds of spring
and period-clad volunteers became an annual ritual for
many. The last open house, canceled this past April due
to rain, would have been the 38th. Will it continue?
“You know, I think it will,” White said. “My brother,
Rusty Kemp, would be in charge of that; but I have no
doubt that it will continue. Every year mother would say
this will be the last year, and last year the rain came and
she had to cancel it, and I thought, ‘Oh, no, this really
may truly be the last year.’ But it doesn’t mean that it
won’t continue, it was just the last year for her.”
Rusty said it’s a bit soon to think about the matter, but
added there is a “good possibility” the Shaw-Kemp Open
House will continue.
The event is held on property that once belonged to
the Thomas J. Shaw family. The central building is a log
cabin built by Shaw in 1856. He and his wife raised 13
children there, and the Shaws kept the property in the
family for 121 years. The Kemps, in 1975, bought a large
section of the property and found the original cabin being
used as a barn. Kemp famously told her husband she
wanted to fix it up and secure a historical marker for it.
According to Kemp: “One day in 1980, V. came in and
said, ‘I have my barn built now, so the cabin is yours.’”
And the rest is history — they restored the cabin and in
1982 received a historical marker.
“We dedicated the historical marker with a big open
house,” she once recalled. “We had so much fun that
year, afterward, we hosted an open house on a Sunday
afternoon. In 1995, we decided to make the Shaw-Kemp
Open House an all-day affair.”
Kemp was also passionate about and a founding
member of the Abandoned Cemetery Association of
Parker County.
“I know she was extremely proud of the Abandoned
Cemetery Association,” her daughter said. “My mom and
dad founded that. Back in those days you went coon
hunting and you could hunt on people’s property — it
wasn’t like it is now. They’d turn their dogs loose, and the
dogs might go three or four miles. You followed the dogs.
It would always be late at night. Well, they were in this
area, and he [her dad] actually laid down to listen to the
dogs — that’s what you wanted to do, hear the dogs bark
— and laid his head on a tombstone, and that’s when
they discovered it was a cemetery. So he went home and
told mother, ‘You know, we need to do something, we
need to clean that up.’ And so they did. It was the County
Poor Farm. They cleaned it up and that’s what started it.”
The ACAPC was founded in 1985, and, according
to the association’s website, to date some 74 small rural
cemeteries in the county have been rescued from the
dustbin of neglect. Kemp loved her abandoned cemeter-
ies work, and was proud others joined her to put things
right.
Longtime friend Nadine Murphree described Kemp as
Serving Parker County
for over 60 years
26
Our goal
is to serve
every
family
as if they
are a part
of our own.
Photo by Megan Parks
Norma Plowman | Misty Plowman-Engel | James R. Plowman
913 N. Elm St., Weatherford, TX 76086 | 817-594-2747 | 800-593-2747 | [email protected]
New Location Opening Soon: 4941 E. I-20 North | Willow Park, TX 76087