Early German immigrants faced tough times at Christmas
By Myra Lee Adams Goff — The year is 1849, just five years after the first emigrants arrived on the Texas coast. Hermann Seele has been invited to spend December 26th with Pastor L.C. Ervendberg, his wife Luise, their five children, and the 19 orphans left parentless by the devastating immigration
Backroad bingo
By Tara V. Kohlenberg — After this past week’s historic Arctic storms Uri and Viola had us in winter lockdown, I jumped at the chance to go driving through the Comal countryside under the clear blue skies. It wasn’t just the sunshine and 70-degree temperatures that were so inviting. It
“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
The story of the orphan photo album
By Tara V. Kohlenberg — This past weekend I attended a reunion of my husband’s family. I don’t know everyone and I don’t know the family history, so I found myself gravitating to “the old ones.” They are the ones who know the names of the faces in photos from
When cotton was king
By Myra Lee Adams Goff — The fall of the worldwide stock market, known as the Great Depression in 1929, was not of major concern to New Braunfelsers. Being an agrarian area, the county was more affected by a serious drought that had occurred in the early 1920s up to
Shipwreck
By Keva Hoffmann Boardman – When I think of all the difficulties those first immigrants faced on their journey to New Braunfels — storms at sea, little food and fresh water, births of babies, walking hundreds of miles, disease and death — I shouldn’t be surprised by stories of shipwreck.
This next Tuesday, March 21, is New Braunfels Founder’s Day
(Published in the New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung on March 19, 2017) Today, March 19, 2017, marks 172 years since Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels woke up to a snow storm in Texas. He was camping at the Guadalupe River getting ready to look over the land that he had just purchased for
Peace on earth, good will to men
By Myra Lee Adams Goff Imagine that you are on the Texas Coast where you have just arrived on one of the Adelsverein ships. You left Germany three months ago. You are far away from the Heimatland (homeland) for the first time ever and it is Christmas time. Your whole
Margarethe Schertz, pioneer woman
By Myra Lee Adams Goff Margarethe Schertz was only 12 years old when she came to Texas with her parents in 1844. If she were alive today, she could tell us a story and a half about Texas, Comal County, and especially New Braunfels. It’s a unique story of an