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)