By Myra Lee Adams Goff

In the Sophienburg Museum, there is a display of several prominent early civic leaders in New Braunfels. You will see Zink, von Coll, Lindheimer, Seele, Ervendberg, Meusebach and Dr. Theodore Koester.

It seems that Koester was the most controversial of all these early leaders.

Dr. Koester was born in Frankfurt, Germany in 1817. While he was in medical school in Germany, family sources say that Koester fathered a child out of wedlock. He gave the baby to his childless brother Ferdinand and wife to raise. Shortly thereafter, he decided to leave Germany and emigrate to Texas. He was hired by the Adelsverein to be the doctor for the emigrants aboard ship and in the settlement.

Koester left on the first ship, the “Johann Dethardt.” Apparently from letters written by emigrants to Prince Carl, he made himself very unpopular. Emigrant Carl Elmendorf wrote that Koester made insulting remarks ridiculing women and even made fun of a feeble-minded man. He said that Koester became drunk when they landed in Galveston although they were all warned about the possibility of strong alcohol in Texas.

Another emigrant, Philipp Luck, wrote that at the camp on the route inland, his pregnant wife had gone into labor and Koester had said that she was “faking it.” Luck finally found a midwife three miles away to deliver the baby. Emigrant Adam Voigt stated that Koester had called his wife insulting names. The Prince temporarily suspended Koester as Adelsverein doctor, but not for long.

Writer Alwin Sörgel’s “A Sojourn in Texas 1846-1847″ states this about Koester: “It is difficult to say whether his unscrupulousness comes from his ignorance or vice-versa. At this time, they are waiting to confirm his next poisoning so he can be removed and brought to trial or he will be lynched.”

According to some accounts, Koester ministered to the sick and by other accounts, buried most of his patients. Survivors called the cemetery “Koester’s Plantation.” He purchased a town lot on the corner of Seguin and Garden streets.

Dr. Ferdinand Roemer in his journey through Texas, upon entering New Braunfels for the first time in 1846, took special note of a small house occupied by Dr. Koester. The house had three businesses advertised: Doctor, Pharmacist and Baker. Roemer observed that it wasn’t unusual for doctors to also be pharmacists, but very unusual for them to also be bakers.

In 1846, Koester married emigrant Sophie Tolle. To accommodate a growing family, a large two-story house plus basement (still standing today) was built in 1859 to replace the small one (421 S. Seguin Ave.). It was unusually elaborate for its time. Local architect W. A. Thielepape built the building of cedar, oak and limestone. The kitchen was in the basement and food was carried to the dining room on the first floor by a dumbwaiter. The doctor’s office was also on the first floor and bedrooms were on the second floor. The three floors were connected with a winding stairway plus speaker tubes.

In spite of on and off complaints about Koester’s medical practice, he seemed to enjoy political popularity. Proof of that came when he was chosen City Alderman in 1846.

Later, Comal County citizens were called upon to elect two delegates to represent the county at the convention in Austin to decide whether Texas should secede from the Union. Koester and Walter Preston were elected.

Koester was also a successful businessman, beginning a paper factory, a distillery and a woolen mill.

Koester died at the age of 60 and was buried in the Adelsverein Cemetery. Sophie went to live with her married daughter, Marie Eisenlohr. (Source: “Women in Early Texas” by Evelyn M. Carrington, PhD)

Koester’s medical practices were a common complaint. Then flip the coin and he was obviously a man of political popularity, at least he was politically powerful.

Koester home on Seguin Strasse. Insert is Dr. Theodore Koester as a young man.

By Myra Lee Adams Goff

In 1916, a unit of United States Army soldiers was on maneuvers from San Antonio and camped on the Landa Ranch overlooking Landa Park. One of those soldiers camping there was young Victor Kase who would return to New Braunfels to become band director at New Braunfels High School. Kase later said that the maneuvers were for the purpose of fighting Pancho Villa, should he advance this far.

Returning to New Braunfels in the school year 1943-1944, Kase accomplished a great deal before leaving in 1947. He came here with 20 years of music education and performance to his credit.

For the school, he wrote the alma mater, first the tune and then the words. He observed that the school only had a fight song “On New Braunfels”. It is thought that this song, substituting the words for “On Wisconsin” took hold here in 1916 when most of those same soldiers were from Wisconsin.

More recent band director Joe Rogers wrote Seguin’s alma mater.

When I was in the seventh grade, NBHS included grades 7-12 at the Mill St. School, now the NBISD Administration building. Band was in the basement next to the boiler that heated the entire building. With concrete floors and padded walls, the band didn’t bother other classes.

I remember Victor Kase in his smart, completely white military uniform in the tradition of John Philip Sousa. I will never forget George Goepf playing the piccolo solo in “Stars and Stripes Forever”. We played “El Capitan, “National Emblem”, “Zacatecas” and the list goes on and on.

There were five seventh graders chosen to be in the big band in 1943-44 and I was fortunate to be one of them. Other seventh graders were Doyle Krueger, Allen Pittman, Shirley Rheinlander, and Gladys Werner.

That year, we won first division in the marching competition in San Antonio. Lots of practice went into that competition in the Academy Avenue gym and up and down Mill Street.

We were led by drum major Jack Darling and majorettes in military jackets with jodhpurs and high white boots.

They were Laura Jean Yates, Inez Wegeman, Kathleen Adams and Billie Lou Luckett. By 1947, Kase had increased the majorette line to a total of eight.

But Kase wasn’t only interested in band music; he was interested in promoting an orchestra program with string instruments.

He began a strings program at Carl Schurz Elementary. For the community, he began the New Braunfels Civic Orchestra. This orchestra featured guest artists as well.

Kase, in his spare time, played with the San Antonio Symphony and filled in for local oompah bands.

This community orchestra gave a concert for the celebration of the New Braunfels Centennial in 1946. A picture of the orchestra is at the Sophienburg and reveals the names of about half of the participants. Log on to sophienburg.com for those names.

When I think of band years, I remember a loyal, musically talented person, Gladys Werner (Reininger), who not only played the flute and piccolo for six years in the band and orchestra, but was also a majorette from 1946 to 1950.

She comes by this musical talent naturally because her father, Eddie Werner, played the flute and piccolo with the Army Military Band in World War I in Koblenz, Germany. His wooden flute and piccolo are the ones that his daughter played for her first years in the band.

Victor Kase left New Braunfels in 1947 to teach in schools elsewhere. In 1977, at age 84, he made one last trip here to visit old friends.

Merritt Schumann, who had been drum major in 1945-46, organized a get-together for former band members. Victor Kase died shortly thereafter, but left behind:

“Our comradeship we’ll ne’er forget those glorious days of yore,

The blue and white for truth and right, shall live forever more.”

New Braunfels Civic Orchestra – Members Identified in Photo 2022-90C: Director Victor Kase, Mrs. Max Oelkers, Mrs. F.N. Warwick, Fred Oheim, Mrs. G. Mornhinweg, Mrs. M.P. Ollom, Mrs. Melitta Stahl, Dr. M. P. Ollom, Fritz Koepp, Buddy Luehlfing, Loretta Liebscher, Maurice Widener, Julia Odiorne, Lorraine Bremer Rose, Reginald Ludwig, Allen Pittman, Jolene Staats, George Goepf Jr., Guswin Dedeke, J.A. Boen, Frances Oheim, Kenneth Triesch (soloist), Helen Buyfendorf, Kurt Schmedes.