A flight to remember

Replica of the Wright Vin Fiz, 1911. Keva Hoffmann Boardman — On Saturday, October 21, 1911, James Ogletree and a buddy finished gathering pecans along the Guadalupe River near the Gruene Road bridge and walked up to his grandfather H.D. Gruene’s store. There, they heard the MKT depot manager exclaim

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Die Neunköder and the castor bean

Keva Hoffmann Boardman — When nine young men from Frankfort emigrated to Texas in 1849, they were given the nickname of “Die Neunköder” or “the Nine Lures” or “the Niners.” One of them, George Weber, described the group of adventurers: “Taking a sailship at Antwerpen, we finally landed at Indianola

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Elfendritschenwolpertinger

By Keva Hoffmann Boardman — It’s words like this that make the German language so much fun. Actually, this word doesn’t even translate into English…which happens more times than you think. It comes with a great story though. I found a history of Luckenbach, Texas, on the town’s website. Yes,

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The art of history

By Tara Voigt Kohlenberg —History is shared in many formats including art, the printed word and personal stories handed down from one generation to another. Quilts are special commemoratives given for births, graduations, weddings, and anniversaries or to someone who is moving away. Quilts are art. While more practical and

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Mammoth finds

By Keva Hoffmann Boardman – If you’ve ever looked at the mural “Lure of the Springs” on the Parks and Rec building in Landa Park, you will find it includes a mammoth. The Sophienburg has several prehistoric artifacts and one of them is a mammoth tooth. Cool. I wondered where

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Connecting the dots of history

By Keva Hoffmann Boardman — Remember dot-to dot coloring books? The fun of dragging your pencil around the page to connect each black dot in order to get an image to color? I find that working at the Sophienburg often entails finding and connecting dots. Recently, Wendy Zunker Coleman donated

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Charcoal burners of the Guadalupe

By Keva Hoffmann Boardman — A year ago, I alluded to a book, Charcoal and Charcoal Burners, published in 1950, by Fritz and Emilie Toepperwein of Boerne. From around 1870 until 1919, the name Charcoal City was given to a region of land in the Guadalupe River Valley that extended

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“Ein Prosit, ein Prosit” to music

By Myra Lee Adams Goff We are celebrating the 175th Anniversary of New Braunfels and its unique culture in which music played a large part. Music creates sounds that evoke different emotions. Sounds representing joy, sadness, patriotism, history and love and can be produced through many different instruments and particularly

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Isabel Zuniga wins Sophienburg history scholarship

The recipient for the Sophienburg’s Myra Lee Adams Goff history scholarship has been chosen. Out of over 50 entries from Canyon High School, Canyon Lake High School, New Braunfels High School and Smithsons Valley High School, the recipient for this year’s $1000 scholarship is Isabel Zuniga from New Braunfels High

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Recipes for life

By Tara Voigt Kohlenberg Now that circumstances are anything but normal, there is a pretty good chance that you, too, have been playing “What Can I Make With This?” The game is played while standing in front of an open pantry or refrigerator. Don’t get me wrong, I do love

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