By Myra Lee Adams Goff

A bank robbery in downtown New Braunfels? Yes, it happened on March 10, 1922, and reported a week later in the New Braunfels Herald. Hot news item? Well, remember that the Herald was a weekly newspaper. I’m sure that by that time local communication systems had already kicked into effect: “Have you heard?”, “They say…” or “Number please”. Nevertheless, the Herald devoted the greater part of the front page to this event. The robbery took place at the New Braunfels State Bank on the Plaza next to the Plaza Hotel.

To me, the newspaper account reads like an O. Henry story. William Sidney Porter, using his pen name “O. Henry”, supposedly stayed in the Plaza Hotel once. Here’s my version of the bank robbery as read in the newspaper:

Mrs. Fred Withem, the cashier of the M.K.&T Railroad walked into the bank at noon to make a $5,000 deposit. As she left the bank, she heard a strange hissing noise. She looked back to see a Buick touring car driving slowly and then coming to a stop quite a distance from the curb, not like the other cars that parked head-in. She noticed five (there were four) men getting out of the car and walking backwards towards the bank. About 10 minutes later while she was sitting down to eat dinner (lunch) she recalls “the shot was fired announcing the robbery”.

Next door, Emil Marion at the Plaza Hotel Restaurant said that just after noon, two men came in and ordered two cups of coffee. He noticed that they had handkerchiefs hanging from the lower part of their faces but didn’t think they looked like masks. Perhaps they had been “riding in the wind”. They gave him two bits (25¢) and he had to go out to get change. On his way back, he heard a whistle and when he got back to the restaurant, the men were gone, but the coffee had not been tasted.

Meanwhile inside the bank, cashier Kloepper had just returned before Mrs. Withem left. President Blumberg was counting her deposit. Assistant cashier Ludwig and bookkeeper Clarence Wetzel were also there. When Blumberg looked up, a man wearing sunglasses stuck a gun in his face and demanded that they all hold their hands up.

A second armed man jumped the railing and ordered all the employees to lie on the floor while the robbers collected the loot. The other bookkeeper, Harold Adams, came back to the bank at this time and one of the men poked a gun against his chest.

The robbers completed the robbery and all the bank employees were marched into the vault. The robbers thought they were secure, but the bankers got out immediately through a “little device recently installed” and the alarm was given. The robbers got away in the Buick.

When the fire alarm was given, a crowd gathered outside the bank thinking it was a fire, but when they found out it was a robbery, “there was some confusion for about five minutes”. Available cars loaded with heavily armed local men left on the route they thought the robbers had taken across the bridge at Landa Park towards the hills.

Yes, the robbers had taken this route, went several miles into the hills, hid the Buick in the cedar and even heard the cars that were looking for them. Later reports said they hid until morning when they went on the San Antonio road after hiding the money. They weren’t caught.

After looking at several sources, I found out the robbers were the infamous Newton brothers of Uvalde, just as “popular” as Bonnie and Clyde. Author T. Lindsay Baker is including the incident in his upcoming book, “A Gangster Tour of Texas”, along with other gangster activities in Texas. It will be published by Texas A&M University Press and will be available shortly.

She noticed four men walking backwards toward the bank. Artist: Patricia S. Arnold

By Myra Lee Adams Goff

Sophie’s Shop at the Sophienburg is loaded with books about New Braunfels and native New Braunfelsers. There are novels, children’s books, as well as history books. The first “Meet the Local Authors” will be Saturday, April 17th from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. All the authors will be there to visit and have their books.

A very special author present will be Alton J. Rahe, who chose to have his book signing during this event. His new 200-page book “History of Mission Valley Community” is a hardcover coffee-table book with 150 fantastic photographs.

Rahe tells the history of the Mission Valley Community, including the Mountain Valley School District which extended to Hueco Springs. He begins with significant events that took place in the area as far back as 1756, almost 90 years before the Germans settled New Braunfels.

In his description of the Mission Valley School, he lists the 439 students who attended there before the district was annexed to the New Braunfels ISD (1952). How does Rahe know about one room school houses? Well he attended the Mountain Valley School in Sattler where his father, Albert Rahe, was his teacher for eight years. He went to New Braunfels High School as a sophomore and graduated in 1950.

Some prominent local citizens owned land in the Mission Valley area – John Meusebach, Ernest Coreth, George Kendall, and Joseph Landa, to name a few. He also includes a brief genealogy of 32 community families.

Country clubs, guest and tennis ranches, rural life, bowling alleys and shooting clubs were all in the same area. Rahe has the latest information on the J.J. Walzem Chapel.

We all like to read stories about people we either know or are related to, so naturally one of my favorite stories is one that Rahe obtained from sisters Jane Adams Brumett and Marilyn Adams Thurman. Their father, Harold Adams, wrote down a story dictated to him by his father, Wilhelm “Bill” Adams. (Bill and my grandfather, Louis Adams, were sons of Heinrich and Katharina Doeppenschmidt Adams). Harold Adams had a wonderful, easy-reading way of writing the exciting story of his father growing up on the Adams Ranch on Bulverde Road ( F.M.1863). His story is centered around the Post Oak Sea, a watering hole several acres large and maybe 100 feet deep.

Other authors to meet at the event will be: Brenda Anderson-Lindemann, Diane Fanning, Everett Fey, Myra Lee Adams Goff, Dr. Charles Grear, Rosemarie Leissner Gregory, Eugene Haas, Jennifer Harrison, Laurie Jasinski, Janet Kaderli, Roxolin Krueger, Ray Martinez, Travis Poling, Alton Rahe, Dr. Mary Scheer, and Wilfred Schlather.

You are invited to have refreshments and visit.

Girl Scouts at Walzem Chapel in 1969. The Girl Scout Leader was Yvonne Rahe. Front row: Debbie Cowsert Berger (red top), Diana Woodbury Whitley (blue jacket), Sara Mills, and behind kneeling is Marcella Bryant; standing: Kim Reeves (blue jacket), Greta Voigt Newsome (navy jacket), Cathy Skoog Marcoux (white scarf); behind them: Lisa Zipp Sacco, Elizabeth Davis Bennett; behind them: Cheryl Adams Kloss, Kim Prochazka Muschalek, Loren Schaefer Scholl; last row: Lori Rahe Ventura, Christi Bueche Haberer. (Alton Rahe Photo)

By Myra Lee Adams Goff

Can you think of three words that would describe what was important to your mother’s generation? How about your grandmother’s? Go back one more generation and it’s easy because that generation of immigrant women spelled it out: “Küche, Kirche, und Kinder, or “kitchen, church and children”. Written accounts bear this out. We know a lot about women’s lives from Luise Ervendberg.

One hundred sixty five years ago on March 21, 1845, the first settlers crossed the Guadalupe, making their way to their first encampment in New Braunfels. Along with this group came Louis and Luise Ervendberg. Louis had been hired by Prince Carl to tend to the religious needs of the colonists. The Adelsverein organization that promoted the emigration project from Germany paid for the erection of a small log hut for the Ervendbergs and next to it the first log church of the German Protestant Church.

The next year from May to July of 1846 torrential rains flooded Texas. Sickness broke out on the coast while the emigrants were waiting for transportation inland. Some emigrants decided to walk to New Braunfels, only to be stranded on the other side of the flooding Guadalupe.

Some of the emigrants that arrived in New Braunfels brought disease to the settlement. To take care of the sick and not expose them to the other inhabitants, pavilions with thatched roofs were set up near the river. Dr. Koester and others checked on them, but nothing was available to help these poor souls. Church records show 348 deaths that year alone.

Meanwhile in town, 60 orphaned children were being taken care of by the Ervendbergs. Tents had been set up on the church property. Eventually all but 19 children were claimed by friends and relatives. These 19 children, ranging in age from four to fourteen, would become part of the Ervendberg family.

Bursting at the seams, Louis Ervendberg requested land so that he could raise food for the family. In 1848, the Western Texas Orphanage Asylum was incorporated by Ludwig Bene, Hermann Spiess, and Ervendberg. The building was of cedar timber filled in with sundried adobe brick and covered with pine clapboard. Three and a half miles from the middle of town on the Guadalupe River, the orphanage was known as the Waisenhaus, believed to be the first orphanage in Texas.

Due to salary issues, Ervendberg resigned as pastor of the church in 1850, devoting full time to his now family of 26. We have family accounts of life at the orphanage through descendants, mainly through daughter Augusta and the seven Timmermann sisters of Geronimo.

A school house was set up for both the boys and girls. Louis taught geography, language, math, religion, and science in particular. He had requested silk worms from his botanist friend Asa Gray, and thread and cloth was produced. They grew tobacco, rolled the leaves into cigars and sold them in town. The boys did all the farming. They fished and gathered clams from the Guadalupe, and hunted deer and wild game.

The girls learned from Luise the things that were important to her. Remember the Küche, Kirche und Kinder? They learned to cook and sew. They gathered grapes, wild plums and honey. Twenty small loaves of bread had to be baked each day and cheese and butter had to be made.

The Waisenhaus eventually was inherited by Kaleen Acker, a g-g-granddaughter of Luise Ervendberg. She and her husband Herbert Acker moved into the orphanage in 1954. When Kaleen died, Herbert stayed on. Recently he turned the property over to his niece, Ramona Acker Peck. She and her husband plan to renovate and preserve the Waisenhaus.

Although Ramona Peck is not an actual descendent of the Ervendbergs, she has another interesting connection. She is the g-g-granddaughter of one of the orphans, Christian Guenther. This turn of events is a plus for historic preservation.

Augusta Ervendberg Wiegraeffe shortly before her death in 1940.

By Myra Lee Adams Goff

Now keep on writing what you know
About the things you do,
And share with us your memories
So we can learn from you.

Have you ever thought about the importance of writing in a diary and keeping a scrapbook and what this process has done for history?

One hundred seventy five years ago, emigrants wrote letters home to Germany telling about their journey to Texas. We know a great deal about early New Braunfels from those letters and from prolific writers like Roemer, Seele, Sörgel and others. Prince Carl’s papers give us yet another interpretation of the political side of the settlement.

A new exhibit called “Bon Voyage” inside the Sophienburg Museum this month will highlight the era between the two world wars, WWI (1914-1918) and WWII (1941-1945) and is based on the diary and scrapbook of Marie Rose Remmel who traveled through Europe in 1930. Twenty-eight years old at the time, she traveled with a group known as the Christian Endeavor Friendship Pilgrimage, for which she worked as a writer.

The scrapbook and diary were given recently to the Sophienburg. Remmel volunteered at the Archives and in 1982 at the age of 80 she was honored with the “Volunteer of the Year” award.

The Christian Endeavor group with whom Remmel traveled was on its way to a convention in Berlin. Before and after the convention the group did extensive travel through the Netherlands, Scotland, Germany, Austria, England, France, Italy, and Czechoslovakia. Remmel’s keen observation is apparent through her description of the visited areas and her skill as a photographer.

The 80-year-old scrapbook is even a good example for today’s scrapbook enthusiasts. Wonderful, clear black and white photos were probably a result of a simple camera. Adding souvenirs here and there, she put in edelweiss flowers long before those flowers were made popular by “The Sound of Music.” A melted candle that was used while going through the catacombs of Italy has lost its lighting ability.

When reading the diary, one cannot help but realize that the places Remmel visited in 1930 are the same places that tourists visit now — London Bridge, Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, windmills, castles, University of Heidelberg, the Black Forest, the Alps, Oberammergau, Neuschwanstein, St. Peter’s Square, Sistine Chapel, Arc de Triomphe, Louvre, Eiffel Tower, and on and on. Who would have known that Europe would look so different just a few years later? The Sophienburg will supplement the diary and scrapbook with period articles taken from its historic collection.

If you kept a diary or you were a letter-writer in the past, you have probably discovered that many of the details that you wrote you don’t even remember. There’s just too much for our conscious brain to retain. My mother, Cola Moeller Adams, was the ultimate in journal and scrapbook keeping. I have books of photos and remarks about the things she thought and did in the 1920s. In 1924 my mother graduated from N.B.H.S. and kept a book of all the senior activities, including a plan of the dresses that she was going to have sewed her senior year along with prices and swatches of material. She told of her speech as salutatorian of her class on graduation night. To her horror, her long ruffled skirt got caught in a fan on the stage and was almost ripped off. I’m going to give the Sophienburg a copy because of what they can learn about the “Roaring 20s.”

I’m sure Marie Rose Remmel never dreamed that her writing would be read eighty years later, and yet diaries, scrapbooks, journals, letters, are the best ways of preserving memories.

And still remember present time
Will only shortly last,
And then will be, however lived
A memory of the past.

—Anonymous

On board the S.S. Aurania, August 31, 1930. L-R is Lillie Schultz, Marie Remmel, and Lillian Elmendorf.

By Myra Lee Adams Goff

“Connecticut Yankees in Prince Carl’s Court” might describe the Torrey brothers, John F., Tudor, Abraham, George, David, and Thomas. They were indeed from Connecticut and three of them did end up in Prince Carl’s domain. One of them, John, stayed.

If you look at the 1850 map, you will see a street named Yankee Strasse parallel to the Comal River. It was next to the property on which John Torrey put his first mill. Yankee Street is no more and what used to be called Market Road was renamed Torrey Street.

In 1838 we find the Torrey brothers engaging in a merchandising company near Houston located on a hill about two miles from the Brazos River. The brothers were “closely associated with Sam Houston’s efforts to establish friendly relations with Indians in Texas”. (Source: Oscar Haas) Indians hunted hides of buffalo, deer, raccoon, cougar, beaver, antelope, bobcats, grey wolf hides and they were traded for provisions that the Indians wanted. The hides were processed by the Torreys and sent all over the United States, even Canada. Mules were also traded. Most of the mules were captured by the Comanches on their annual raids in the northern province of Mexico. (Source: Roemer)

The Torrey brothers furnished wagons, teams, and provisions for the first German emigrants coming to NB from the coast. The company also supplied guns and swords for Prince Carl’s mounted soldiers. As a result, John Torrey accompanied the emigrants to NB and there established a trading house. The first corn crop from the settlers was ground by a horse-powered grinding mill for 10 cents a bushel. This establishment was at the intersection of San Antonio and Hill Streets.

Three of the Torrey brothers married in New Braunfels; John married Laura Dittmar, George married Mary Frances Taylor, and Tudar married Annie Weir. The 1860 census for Comal County lists John Torrey, wife Laura, daughter Emma, son John; also Abraham Torrey and the Torrey’s father, Jacob.

An interesting family connection to George Torrey is that his wife’s father was Matthew Taylor, who was the proprietor of Taylor Hotel (former Comal House) located where the Pfeuffer Law Offices are now. During the Civil War, Matthew Taylor became the tax assessor and collector in Comal County of Confederate States War Tax. The rate was 50 cents for $100 value.

In 1848 John Torrey began his manufacturing ventures big time.  He received a permit to build a water powered grist and saw mill on the Comal River at the foot of Mill St. To this he added the manufacturing of wheat flour and a shop to produce doors, sashes, and blinds. In 1861 this three story timber constructed building was destroyed by fire in the early morning hours.

Not giving up, Torrey in 1863 received a charter from the State of Texas to import cotton cloth weaving machinery, duty free, from Mexico. He built a three story stone building at the same site on the Comal and went into partnership with the Runge Brothers of Indianola. Once again, Nature swooped down and a tornado in 1869 took off the third floor where the looms for manufacturing cotton cloth were located. He put a roof on the second floor and continued operation.

Three years later the Comal River went on a flooding rampage and totally collapsed the newly renovated stone building, plus the rebuilt dam and a nearby iron bridge. The only thing left is part of the Torrey Mill foundation visible at the Clemens Dam area at the foot of Mill Street.

That was it for John Torrey. He left New Braunfels and lived out the rest of his life on land that he had purchased in 1843 in Hood County. He died in 1893. Although he gave eight acres of land to establish the Comal Cemetery, he is not buried there.

Descendants of Torrey gather at the marker placed at site of first grist and flour mill. Erected by the State Centennial Historic Committee on Oct. 9, 1936, the marker can be seen near the tube chute.

By Myra Lee Adams Goff

Next week is Valentine’s Day and the Sophienburg has a display of about 30 of their historic valentines from the early 1900s to the 1950s. The most elaborate and beautiful card is a zephyr (hot air balloon) decorated with a technique called “honeycomb”. Parts of the card fold down and paper doilies are the predominant decoration. The cards are in a display case next to the front desk.

The message and subject on the card gives you a clue to its date. In the early 1900s the message was very sentimental, like “With fond and true affection” and “Sincere and true is my love for you” and decorations looked Victorian with hearts and flowers. Remember the Campbell’s Kids on the soup cans? We have a valentine with those kids and that puts it in the 1920-30 era. Valentine postcards were a big thing. Some are sentimental, but many are humorous, like “I’m looking for one like you to spend my money on”. That one wasn’t signed.

Almost everyone has a Valentine story. One of my favorite stories came from Janelle Berger who told me that when her husband, Dr. Chuck Berger, was in medical practice here in New Braunfels, he accepted a lady’s valentine collection as payment for medical treatment.

While I was teaching, I would wear my 1941 heart bracelet on February 14. The bracelet has 30 hearts engraved with friends and family names. The hearts were soldered on because my mother knew that I liked to take things apart. I used the bracelet to tell the students about WWII and NB. One heart actually has 1941 engraved on the back - the year the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.

Five of the hearts predictably have American flags and one has the Liberty Bell which became the icon of defense bond sales. Three hearts have tropical scenes with palm trees, ocean shores, no doubt because of America’s involvement in the South Pacific.

One heart I found at the bottom of Landa Park pool when it was being drained and cleaned. One heart was a sample from Vollmar’s Five and Dime. I didn’t know the “Catherine” that was engraved on the back, but the Vollmars were friends of my family and I was often the recipient of such goodies.

I see that my cat Snoopy went down to Roth’s Jewelry to buy a small heart with a stone on it. Roth’s Jewelry hearts were engraved with a machine and some have beautiful enameled surfaces. Snoopy had good taste.

Heart bracelets were outlawed at school.  I suppose that anything that takes 20 or 30 people to put together makes too much noise. Thank you, Mother, for not letting me take my bracelet apart.

There are as many versions as to how Valentine’s Day started as there are valentines. The history is both interesting and bazaar. Here’s one: In Roman Empire days, the Romans engaged in a pagan practice of putting the names of teenage girls in a box and adolescent boys would draw a name at random. The girls were then assigned to live with the boys for a year, celebrating a young man’s rite of passage. Early church leaders, objecting to this practice and determined to replace this pagan Lupercalia festival on February 14th, substituted St. Valentine, a bishop who had been martyred two hundred years earlier for secretly  marrying couples after Emperor Claudius II banned marriage. February 14th then became St. Valentine’s Day in his honor. The box idea lived on, and with time, into the box were put names of saints. Both men and women drew a name and in turn promised to live like that saint. St. Valentine was the most popular saint.  Valentine boxes have changed dramatically over the years!

Think about this: Valentines have evolved to the Internet. Is the meaning still the same?

Happy Valentine’s Day from the Sophienburg Collection Ladies. Top row, L-R Ann Giambernardi, Georgia Banta, Yvonne Rahe. Sitting, L-R Virginia Nowotny, Madelyn Harris, Helen Hoffmann

By Myra Lee Adams Goff

The name Johann Jacob Rahm is not a very familiar one in New Braunfels – nothing is named after him, no street or school like after Solms, Seele, or Lindheimer. But Rahm is perhaps the one person who actually was the most influential in the selection of this site to become New Braunfels.

Here’s the story: Rahm was in Texas about 10 years before the first settlers arrived here in 1844. Hailing from Schaffhausen in Switzerland, little is known of his background. After arriving in Texas we know he was a private in Captain Thomas J. Morgan’s Company G of the Republic of Texas Army in 1836. Everett Fey’s book, “New Braunfels, The First Founders” has Rahm serving in the Santa Fe Expedition of 1841 organized by Republic of Texas President Lamar to open trade with Mexico. Rahm was captured and marched to Mexico. Later, returning to Texas, Rahm enlisted in Col. Jack Coffee Hays’ Texas Rangers on June 1, 1843.

According to Fey, while he was on a surveying expedition with Hays, Rahm was captured by Indians on the Comal River. He thereby became familiar with the area that the Indians called “Los Fontanas” or “the springs”.

Supposedly Rahm helped out the abandoned colonists of Henry Castro. He fed them with his own resources, provided for the sick, and helped them in other ways. As a result of this help, he attracted the attention of Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels who persuaded the Adelsverein to present Rahm and his superior Col. Hays with rifles as tokens of their admiration.

In March, 1845, Prince Carl came to San Antonio hoping to find a way-station for the settlers before they arrived at their final destination which originally was to be the San Saba and Llano Rivers. Prince Carl met up with Rahm once again in San Antonio and

Rahm told him of the beautiful spot between two rivers, the Comal and Guadalupe. With his respect for Rahm, Prince Carl entered into a contract to buy the 1,265 acre Comal Tract from the Juan Veramendi heirs, sight unseen. This he did on March 15, 1845, just six days before the settlers crossed the Guadalupe into the land that would become New Braunfels.

Johann Rahm then joined the prince and three days before the first settlers crossed the Guadalupe, Prince Carl, Rahm, and 25 men made an inspection of the area. They camped on the Comal at the foot of Bridge St. and during the night a light dusting of snow covered the tents. The prince thought this was a good omen.

From Prince Carl’s report: “March 19: I went with Rahm, Wrede, Lüntzel, and Zink into the woods; with hunting knives and axes we cut a four mile trail to the springs. The next day I went on a long ride with Coll, Lindheimer, and five men”. On March 21, the first 15 wagons crossed the Guadalupe.

Prince Carl presented Rahm with 4 ½ acres generally between San Antonio St. and Coll St. Here Rahm set up a butchery and became the official butcher of the German Emigration Company.

All was well until October of that same year, 1845. John Meusebach in his report to the Adelsverein states that Rahm died as a result of two pistol shots by settler Maertz. Meusebach reports that Rahm in a state of drunkenness was very argumentative and he whipped out his pistol and shot twice in the air, missing Meartz, but Maertz felt threatened, and in self-defense, shot Rahm who “lay dead on the floor”.

Prince Carl called Rahm “savior of the unfortunate”. Oscar Haas called him “the forgotten man”. I’m at a loss for words as to what to call him.

Prince Carl, Rahm, Wrede, Lüntzel and Zink cut a trail to the springs. Artwork by Patricia S. Arnold

By Myra Lee Adams Goff

On March 2, 1847, about 30 miles from the mouth of the San Saba River and north of Fredericksburg, John O. Meusebach, second commissioner-general to the Adelsverein, negotiated a peace treaty with the Comanche Indians. A treaty with the Comanches was essential to settling the Llano and San Saba valleys. Meusebach, whom the Indians called “El Sol Colorado” (the red sun) because of his red hair, had the ideal personality to bring this treaty to fruition.

Dr. Ferdinand Roemer who was traveling in Texas at the time was there when the treaty was signed. He gives a thorough description of the incident in his book Texas. In early February of 1847, Dr. Roemer along with Jim Shaw, and Government Indian agent Major Neighbours would travel to the valley of the San Saba and join Meusebach. Jim Shaw was a six foot Delaware Chief, wearing a black oilcloth coat he bought in Austin. Roemer says that from the back, Jim Shaw looked like a European, but not from the front, as he lacked trousers and wore only deerskin leggings. Major Neighbours would help with translation.

At the end of February after meeting up with Meusebach, the party was greeted outside the Comanche camp by three of the most important Comanche Chiefs. First was Mope-tshoko-pe, meaning “Old Owl”. He was a small undistinguished looking old man, but his crafty face marked him as the diplomatic political chief. Then there was Santa Ana, the powerfully built man who was the war chief. Last, the “unadulterated picture of a North American Indian” (source: Roemer). It was Buffalo Hump. The upper part of his body was naked and only a buffalo hide wound around his hips. His powerful arms were decorated with copper rings and a string of beads was around his neck. He had distinguished himself as a warrior against the Texans.

A camp of about 150 tents made up the camp, some decorated with emblems of individual warriors – shields, headdresses made of buffalo skins with horns attached. About 1,000 horses were grazing nearby and the women and children were busy making horsehair ropes, braiding leather lassos and scraping and cleaning buffalo hides with white clay.

In the morning the chiefs were already squatting before their fire. And by noon, buffalo hides were spread out in a circle in front of the tents. The chiefs and their best warriors sat on one side of the circle and on the other side sat Meusebach, Roemer, Jim Shaw, Major Neighbors, and several others. In the center of the circle lay a pile of tobacco and a pipe. One Indian took two puffs and in complete silence passed it around twice.

Herr Meusebach made the proposals that the Germans should be allowed to settle on the Llano and to survey the land of the San Saba. For this, the Comanches would receive $1,000 in two months in Fredericksburg, where the final meeting would be held. Meuseback assured the Comanches that they would be treated as friends when they visited German settlements.

Abruptly the meeting was over when the chiefs said they would consider it a bit longer.

The next day the proposals were accepted. The two parties mutually embraced with the Comanche trying to show the degree of their friendship by the strength of their embrace. Then they ate venison and rice together.

During the night there was a peculiar serenade made up of Indian men and women. It was a wild, monotonous song along with the beating of sticks over stretched buffalo skins. This was perhaps a response to the folk songs sung by the Germans earlier. They departed on March 3 and headed back to Fredericksburg. Mission accomplished!

A sculpture by Jay Hester in Fredericksburg depicts Meusebach passing the peace pipe to the Comanche Indians.

This traveling exhibit has been rescheduled
for Jan. 12-Feb. 9, 2010.

By Myra Lee Adams Goff

The Sophienburg’s first traveling exhibit will be open at the museum on Tuesday, Jan. 12 and stay through Feb. 9. Hours are 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. excluding Mondays and Sundays.

The exhibit called “Vanished” is about the German-American Civilian Internment that took place from 1941-1948. An organization called “Traces” brings living history to towns and in this case, to Texas towns.

For a donation of $5 to the Sophienburg, one may view narrative panels, see a NBC Dateline documentary, and see a 1945 US Government film. Your donation will also cover your entry into the museum. The sponsoring organization is non-profit and contributions are tax-deductible.

Immediately after the bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt issued a presidential proclamation to authorize the US to detain allegedly potential dangerous enemy aliens of Japanese, German, and Italian descent living throughout the US. Thousands were arrested, some did have Axis sympathies, many were released, but many were interned with little or no evidence against them. Remember Roosevelt’s famous saying, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself”? How does that fit this situation?

Was there anyone from NB arrested? I don’t know the answer. Was the FBI undercover here? Probably. I do know that everyone who went into the service from predominantly German towns was thoroughly investigated. The flip side to that is that many went into intelligence work because of their knowledge of German.

As a young teenager, I heard stories of Nazi sympathizers in town. The reality was that very few NB Germans had relatives left in Germany because most had been Americans for four or five generations.

There was much discrimination against German-Americans when WWI broke out. By 1918, it was against the law to teach German in the schools, to speak German on the playground or in public places. Both my parents were in elementary school here in NB when that war broke out. Both had been taught in German and English.

When WWII began, the German language was on its way out. Few of my generation can speak German at all. “Wie shade” (What a shame). Supposedly it was unpatriotic to speak German, but a lot of the older people from out in the country couldn’t speak English so you could still hear German in the stores and on the streets in NB.

We have a great family story about speaking German. My dad, Marcus Adams went to A&M College. His freshman year he took German (an easy “A”). Immediately he was put in advanced German because he was good at it. His first assignment was to write an essay in German. He did just that, but he wrote it in Fraktur (old German script). The prof couldn’t read it because they were no longer teaching this old writing in Germany. Dad made straight A’s.

Look at the picture. It takes place in Kenedy, Texas, where a German internment camp was located and where my husband’s family lived. Glyn was the youngest of five children. He remembers the trainloads of prisoners being brought into Kenedy at night. The shades were drawn, supposedly so they wouldn’t know where they were. The camp was an old converted CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) building. Glyn’s sister Joyce was part of the Methodist Youth Group that had permission to sing Christmas songs to the prisoners. She has a vivid memory of the prisoners on the other side of the fence.

Those that died while incarcerated were buried in the city cemetery, but on the other side of the road. Glyn’s mother told me that a young man had been buried there and after the war, his parents made a pilgrimage to Kenedy from overseas once a year to visit his grave.

“Vanished” is a disturbing story. In wartime, fear motivates distrust, and prejudice can result. Come see it.

Camp Kenedy -- German repatriates leaving for Jersey City. (Camp Administration building in background.)

By Myra Lee Adams Goff

Hermann Seele arrived in Galveston on Dec. 13, 1843. He had come alone to make his home in Texas. On Christmas Eve, he walked the streets of Galveston totally alone and his thoughts were of home in Germany. He remembered how the children stepped up to the glittering Christmas tree and thought, “I wish I could be with them for only an hour, I am so alone here…” Then he saw a Christmas tree through the shutters of a home and the happy children and the faces of the little children heightened his loneliness.

The next Christmas (1844), Seele had been in the coastal area for another year. Nostalgic thoughts of Christmas led him to write in his diary:”Memories, sweeten for me lonely as I am in a foreign country, the hours with the balsam of a wonderful past”. (Source: “The Diary of Hermann Seele”)

A month before Seele was spending his second Christmas in the coastal area in 1844, the first Adelsverein brig, the Johann Dethardt sailed into Galveston harbor. They had finally arrived at the Republic of Texas. By Dec. 1, three one-mast schooners picked up these first emigrants in Galveston to take them to Pt. Lavaca. Two of the three vessels made it easily through Pasa Caballo into Matagorda Bay and then landed on the shore at Pt. Lavaca. There they camped under the open skies for the night. From there they moved to the first camp among the live oaks.

The third schooner had been caught in a storm and driven back into the Gulf of Mexico. The craft had sprung a leak. For days the storm carried the small craft towards Mexico. Finally the winds shifted from the south, moving the schooner back to the Texas coast and into a shallow bay, but during the night a norther tossed the boat so violently that the chain was broken and the boat was once again carried southward. After winds calmed, the vessel finally made its way into the bay. The other earlier arrivals were on the shore greeting them with relief.

Prince Carl greeted the first emigrants and it was at the encampment two miles west of Port Lavaca that the first German emigrants of the Adelsverein held their first church service in the Republic of Texas. The day was Dec. 23, 1844 and the service was conducted by Rev. Louis Cachand Ervendberg who had been hired by Prince Carl to tend to the religious needs of the emigrants.

The prince was aware that Christmastime would be a particularly difficult time for the emigrants, so he cut a small oak tree and decorated it with candles and provided small gifts for the children. There were no fir trees on the coast for the traditional “Tannenbaum”.

On Christmas Eve, the passengers from the second Adelsverein ship, the Herschel, had arrived safely at Carlshafen. On Christmas day, Rev. Ervendberg held the first Communion Service for the new arrivals. The prince presented them with a silver chalice, a communion flagen (pitcher) and a communion paten (wafer plate) to the pastor for use of the first church. Those items are on display at the First Protestant Church. The chalice would forever be a link between the new land and the old, as a duplicate would reside in the ancestral home in Braunfels Germany. (Info Source: “Journey in Faith”; Rosemarie Leissner Gregory and Myra Lee Adams Goff”)

The first emigrants arrived in New Braunfels on March, 1845, and Hermann Seele joined the Adelsverein’s second group six weeks late in May of 1845. The next Christmas in 1845 was the first Christmas spent in New Braunfels, their “Neu Heimatland” (new homeland).

Fröliche Weihnachten from the Sophienburg!

The first settlers celebrate with a church service on the Texas coast, 1844. Patricia S. Arnold, Illustrator