By Myra Lee Adams Goff

You are invited to see some out-of-the-ordinary objects at the Sophienburg Museum. When? Tues.-Sat.10am-4pm. Some things could even be described as “weird”, “unexpected”, “rare”, “unusual” and even “bizarre”.

In the pharmacy exhibit is a hanging glass show globe. It holds about five gallons of colored water and it hung in the Schumann Pharmacy window. Different colors were achieved by mixing distilled water and various chemicals. According to Museum records, “red” signified that there was a health risk in the community and “blue” meant no contagious diseases existed. In the early days the pharmacist made diagnoses, and mixed and dispensed natural and patented medicines. According to David Hartmann, who is very knowledgeable about pharmacies in NB, show globes go back to ancient times when certain colors symbolized certain diseases. He says that later they became more of a symbol showing where the pharmacy was located.

The doctor’s office exhibit has a real wooden leg. Mildred Schlichting recently donated her grandfather’s leg to the Museum. The story behind the leg is interesting. She said that when her grandfather was 18 years old he cut his leg quite badly with a draw knife. It was healing. Then a country doctor said it didn’t look right, so he ripped off the scab which developed into blood poisoning. The leg had to be removed. To do his farm work, he wore the wooden leg strapped to his waist and shoulders. He had to swing it forward in order to walk. Anyway, it worked because he lived to a ripe old age of 83.

Hanging in the general store section of the museum are two small red glass globes that were actually the first home fire extinguishers. They were hung over the kitchen stove. If something caught on fire the hot flame would melt the seal on the bottom of the globe. This would release a chemical that took oxygen out of the air and smother the fire. That’s clever when you think about it.

There’s a barber pole in the museum. Not so weird, right? Perhaps you haven’t run into the “rest of the story”. In the good old days your local hair cutting barber was also the dentist and the surgeon. When he was in his surgeon clothes, the barber practiced “blood letting” to get rid of sick blood. That little instrument is really wicked looking. Now back to the barber pole: the red of the pole stood for blood and the white for gauze. The barber shop was also a favorite place for men to hang out to play instruments and sing. Thus the Barbershop Quartet.

It seems to me that there is something creepy about making something out of human hair. I guess I’ve seen too many horror movies. Anyway, hanging on the wall in the museum is a wreath made of hair from 1873. I decided to pursue more about this old practice so I went to the collection building where the ladies were putting textiles in acid-free boxes.

Helen Hoffman, Virginia Nowotny, Yvonne Rahe, Ora Mae Pfeuffer, and Georgia Banta showed me a nice collection of wreaths made of hair. The “root of the hair” was not ghoulish, as I imagined, but sentimental. For example, in the 1800s before the emigrants left Germany, they collected hair from their loved ones as a tangible remembrance. This hair was intricately woven into tiny flowers, acorns, and some adorned with beads and feathers. There is a thick braid that never made it to the creative hands of its owner from 1845. Keva Boardman said that the jewelry and watch fobs in the collection were made of the hair of the deceased and worn as part of the mourning process.

The Tacoma, Washington Museum of History displays a sign that says “History is not for wimps”. OK, maybe they’re right.

Helen Hoffman shows artifacts from the old pharmacy.

By Myra Lee Adams Goff

It’s early spring in the year 1846 and I am imagining myself at the edge of the Guadalupe where the ferry would be bringing Dr. Ferdinand Roemer into the new town of New Braunfels. He had arrived in Texas the year before to study the resources, geology, and flora of Texas. He especially wanted to meet the well-known botanist,Dr. Ferdinand Lindheimer, who would be an excellent resource.

After Dr. Roemer disembarks, we head up the principal street (Seguin) toward the main plaza and on the right side observe a small house with three shingles hanging with the inscriptions “Apothecary”, “Dr. Koester”, and “Bakery”. Rather unusual combination. Roemer said he had seen “doctor and pharmacist” combinations in Europe, but a baker? After eating the bread produced at the bakery, we thought it was a lucrative combination (now Property Management Professionals).

Passing by a large frame building on the left, we recognize the German Protestant Church. The building had openings for windows, but no actual windows. Close by was the small home of the pastor, Pastor Louis Ervendberg.

Entering the main plaza area, we observed horses tied on the gallery of the chief saloon belonging to von Coll and von Wedemeyer. Roemerexplained to me that dispensing alcoholic drinks was a very lucrative business throughout Texas, especially to German immigrants. He said that the more popular drinks with the Americans were brandy or French cognac manufactured in this country. Both were diluted with water and served in the saloons of New Braunfels because the favorite German drink, beer, was scarce. A dance to the music of a violin was held at this tavern every Sunday (where the Plaza Hotel was).

A nearby building was the store of Ferguson and Hessler (corner of Castell and San Antonio streets). Roemer noted that the prices were three to four times the price than those charged for the same article in Germany.
Turning right on Castell there was a combined hotel, tavern and store (the corner of Castell and Mill streets) owned by a young German, Count Arnold Henkel von Donnersmark. He had been a good businessman from the start, buying a barrel of whiskey in San Antonio and dispensing it out of the barrel to the immigrants under a tent.

Now Dr. Roemer and I are walking down Comal Strasse and we see in the distance, half hidden among the elm and oak trees, a little hut made of logs on the banks of the Comal River. There stood a tall man at the entrance of this hut splitting wood. A thick black beard covered his face. He wore a blue jacket, open at the front, yellow trousers and the coarse shoes customarily worn by farmers in the vicinity. It was indeed Dr. Ferdinand Lindheimer, the famous botanist.

Born in 1801 in Frankfurt-on-the-Main to well-to-do parents, Lindheimer was university educated and had worked as a botany teacher at the Bunsen Institute which the German authorities suspected was training German revolutionaries. He escaped to the US in 1834, landed in New York, made his way down to Mexico and in 1835 joined Houston’s army one day after the Battle of San Jacinto in the Texas Revolution.
In 1844 Lindheimer was employed by Prince Carl on the coast to guide the first colonists from Indianola to the Veramendi tract. For this task, Prince Carl gave Lindheimer a sword and a large tract of land on the Comal River.
By 1851, Lindheimer had organized the plants of the area into a syem of about 20 species and plants, and one genus of Texas wildflowers.

After a visit with this fascinating man, Dr. Roemer was once again on his way and I came back to the year 2009 where I’m reading Roemer’s “Texas”.

“It was indeed Dr. Ferdinand Lindheimer, the famous botanist”. 1846. Patricia Arnold, artist.