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His surname and the name of the cemetery are no coincidence.
'Joseph was my great-grand daddy's uncle,' J.D. explains.
While it may take a minute to sort through the immediate genealogy, the origins of the cemetery start with Jo seph Naler, who made his way from Georgia to Central Tex as in 1851.
'He heard about Waco and went there first but he didn't much care for that territory there,' J.D. Naler said at his home here last week. 'Some body told him about the little community of Perry so he came down here and looked around. About three-and-half miles southwest of Perry, he found a place he wanted.'
After preempting 640 acres, Joseph Naler sent for his wife and children in Georgia. He built a fine, two-story rock and stone house for his family in 1854. A replica of the house can be seen in the east room of the exhibit gallery at the Railroad and Heritage Mu seum in Temple.
'They used a lot of rock from the original house when they made the replica,' J.D. Naler said. 'They way they did it, one inch equals one foot.'
Two of Joseph Naler's bro thers, John and Stephen, moved their families to Cen tral Texas not long after that and bought land bordering Joseph Naler's place. Joseph bought 70 more acres, giving him a little more than 700 acres.
Life might have been hard in the pioneer days, but death was easy. That's easy enough to discover in any old cemetery, though a lot of the people buried at the Naler Cem etery lived longer lives than most of the people bur ied in other old pioneer cem eteries.
The Naler Cemetery got its start in 1863 when Joseph's wife, Polly, was buried on the hill overlooking their house. In time, other members of the community were buried there but the cemetery wasn't formally chartered until 1900, a year before the citizens voted to incorporate a town - Moo dy - that wasn't there when Joseph Perry first settled it.
Joseph Naler would later sell his 700 acres to a nephew, Wil liam, for $3,000, which in clud ed the land and cattle. Joseph left Central Texas for a time but returned. He died in Wa co in 1882 and was buried there for a time before he was re-interred at the cemetery that bears his name.
The town of Moody was founded a year before Joseph Naler died when the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Rail way built a section of track between Temple and Fort Worth.
Before long, the little family cemetery on top of the hill was in the middle of a growing town. The Naler Ceme tery was formally chartered in 1900, a year before the citizens voted to incorporate the town, which had by now grown to a population of 848.
J.D. Naler, 91, saw Moody as a thriving cotton town with a population as high as 1,800 by the late 1920s. By that time, Moody had grown to nearly 1,800 people, but declined dur ing and after the Depression.
'It was a cotton town,' he said. 'Everybody came into town to do their business on Saturday. The place was packed every Saturday.
'We had two hotels here and six cotton gins. Now we're down to one. It's the only gin left in McLennan County and it's doing a good business. There's still quite a bit of cotton grown around here.'
About the only real entertainment in town that Naler remembers from his boyhood was the movie theaters. He remembers the silent movies, then the talkies. He liked the Hoot Gibson movies, though the biggest movie he remembers coming to town was 'Gone With The Wind.'
He said the town has declined as far as the amount of merchandise you can buy in Moody, but notes that it has a strong bank.
The First National Bank of Moody, chartered in 1893, is that bank. It has been housed in its present building since 1915.
'There's not too much excitement here,' he said. 'The Cotton Fest is about the only time we ever make a big to-do about everything.'
This year's Cotton Fest is taking place this weekend and will mark the town's 125th birthday.
Once again, the streets of Moody will be full and bustling on a Saturday.