Baylor students lead cemetery walk highlighting notable women in Waco history

WACO, Texas (KWTX) - Dozens of people gathered at Oakwood Cemetery Saturday morning for a Waco Walks tour highlighting notable women buried there.

The local group invites people to explore Waco on foot, while seeing and learning about all kinds of different things.

Saturday’s walk was led by three Baylor University students currently taking an English class on women writers called “Embodied Natures”.

The students researched and designed the tour themselves, taking participants throughout the cemetery and highlighting 11 notable women buried there.

“One of the women is Hallie Earle, and she was the first female physician here in Waco,” shared Grace Cornelius, a senior at Baylor and one of the student guides.

Bella Nickels, a Junior at Baylor, added that “at Baylor there’s actually a female dorm dedicated to her, it’s kind of focused on the science community”.

Ashley Bean Thornton, the organizer of Waco Walks, says while they’ve done walks through Oakwood before she hadn’t heard about some of the women in today’s tour.

“It was really great to just walk all the way to the back and meet some of the people who were in the back,” Ashley said. “Like I loved hearing about Cornelia Smith, she’s very interesting.”

A yellow rose was placed on each of the women’s graves during the tour.

For more information on Waco Walks and any upcoming walks be sure to check out their website and sign up for their emails.

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