"Woodmen of World Lodge Founded From Strong ‘Roots’"- by Mike Brown

Woodmen of World Lodge Founded From Strong ‘Roots’

by Mike Brown - Reporter Editor

Rockdale Reporter - November 15, 2012

You may not know much about them but I’ll bet you, like me, have seen their distinctive

tree stump grave markers in area cemeteries.

Woodmen of the World (WOW) has been around for more than a century. It’s easy to

document that because exactly 100 years ago they purchased a building in downtown

Rockdale in which to hold their meetings.

Purchase of the Scott Building, which originally housed a legendary pioneer days

photographer on Main Street, gave WOW’s 250-strong Rockdale Pin Oak Camp (lodge) No.

222 the largest meeting place in Milam County of any fraternal organization.

You become a member of Woodmen of the World by purchasing an insurance policy from the

company, headquarted in Omaha Nebraska.

WOW continues to this day although its Milam lodges consolidated into one about three

decades ago.

For many years the Rockdale lodge building was on North Main Street. The building is

still there and is now being used by Primera Iglesia Bautista.

For many of those pre-consolidation years, L. E. Gary was lodge president.

The Rockdale lodge also had a strong women’s auxiliary called Jessamine Grove Woodmen

Circle No. 657.

If you were a service man whose troop train stopped in Rockdale during World War II,

you probably remember the WOW lodge and auxiliary.

They met almost every train and served cookies, coffee and other refreshments to the

soldiers and sailors.

WOW also provided many other public services. And it still does.

Rockdale and Cameron lodges were consolidated into a Milam County lodge (Pecan Lodge

No. 237) which meets in Milano.

Travis Yoakum is president of the lodge and his wife, Jane Yoakum, is secretary.

“We still have hundreds of members with policies,” Jane said. “Of course, like all

fraternal organizations nowadays, only a fraction of that number come to meetings.”

But WOW still does lots of good works in the community. Just recently the lodge

presented donations to several area volunteer fire departments.

Jane’s brother-in-law William Dees is retired Texas Southeast Manager for WOW and knows

more about the lodge than anyone. He’s a Milam County native and now lives in Angleton.

He told me those stunning and unique “tree trunk” gravestones stem—sorry about the pun

- from a part of the WOW creed that no lodge member will lie in an unmarked grave.

Up until 1919 each WOW member got one of the tree trunk grave markers free with their

policy, he said. In 1919, due to cost, the process was stopped but members got some

extra cash in lieu of gravestones.

That explains why there are so many of them and why they’re always on very old graves.

WOW members can still buy the “stump” gravestones. A company in Georgia still makes,

and sells, the markers.

William pointed out that if you look close on some of the tree trunk grave markers you

can see inscriptions of hatchets, doves, plows and other icons.

Those mean the deceased was a WOW officer. Those symbols are used in Woodmen

ceremonies, much like the owl, ear of corn, symbol of Washington and others are used in

FFA ceremonies.

WOW is still a very big deal in Omaha. When the 19-story Woodmen Tower was completed

there exactly 100 years ago it was the tallest building between Chicago and the West

Coast.

That’s not been the case for many years, of course, but there was a fair amount of

controversy when an Omaha bank put up a building which was eight feet higher than the

tower.

Why all the tree iconography? The founder of WOW got it from an 1883 sermon about

pioneer woodmen clearing away the forest to provide for their families.

His name? Believe it or not, it was Joseph Root.

Wonder if they thought about calling the lodges “branches?”

mike@rockdalereporter.com

All credit for this article goes to
Mike Brown and
The Rockdale Reporter