On Tuesday, September 10, the Sophienburg Museum and Archives will open its exhibit about a literary form referred to as fairy tales. Eighteen Brothers Grimm fairy tales will be incorporated into the displays that are already present in the museum.

Keva Boardman, Director of Exhibits at the Sophienburg Museum, has used her imagination and expertise to show off the Sophienburg’s vast collections, seldom seen by the public.

There are some important facts to know before you come to the exhibit. First of all, the “Brothers Grimm”, Wilhelm and Jacob, did not write the fairy tales; they wrote them down. Drawing from a collection of writers such as Charles Perault, they utilized the stories that were passed on by word of mouth, mostly from Europe. Most stories date back to the Middle Ages. These tales are in modern times totally bazaar and full of the evils that man is capable of inflicting on mankind.

Life in the early European days were indeed harsh and fairy tales reflected what children were exposed to and feared the most. The Grimm brothers told the stories they heard from people but modified them to reflect the times. (1800s) Writers of fairy tales for children today do basically the same thing, that is, change the tales to reflect these modern times. Walt Disney did much to keep the fairy tales alive, but in a much more acceptable way to modern children.

Even today the themes of the fairy tales still reflect the underlying fears of children and adults. Think about the fairy tales you know. They play on the themes of evil (the evil stepmother), abandonment (Hansel and Gretel), and fear of becoming a victim. Most children are quick to pick up on these themes in literature and for that reason, they are often fearful of the story itself.

One Christmas when I was eight years old, I received a very large book that contained 100 fairy tales. Each story had an illustration of that particular story. I would turn the pages very slowly and look at the beautifully illustrated pictures. When I got close to the middle of the book, I would hurriedly go past the 50^th story and its illustration. This story was “Bluebeard”, a story about a king who warned his many wives to never enter a certain room in the castle. Of course, the female finally gave in to her curiosity and she opened the door only to find that all the other wives had been beheaded. Needless to say, that story is no longer in fairy tale books and hasn’t been for about 50 years.

The Grimm brothers cleaned up the earlier tales, and Disney cleaned up the Grimm tales. The Sophienburg exhibit is for adults and children. The Grimm brothers were professors of linguistics. Learning about the change in the sounds of words was best accomplished by them by requesting that everyday people tell them stories that they had heard as children. The brothers wrote down the stories which eventually led to their publication in 1814. Consisting of tales from Germany, they were not intended for children, as they were full of witches, wolves, and goblins in dark forests. The original tales make no attempt to be fright-free.

Eighteen fairy tales have been chosen to display and here is an example of what you could see in the exhibit: a “Snow White” dress on a mannequin originally worn by Mitzi Nuhn (Dreher), age six, as she played that part in the Enchanted Hour Kindergarten’s program of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” in 1937 at the Seele Parish House. The teachers of this private Kindergarten were Bessie Baetge and Lucille Staats Jett. The silk and velvet dress was reworked by the Sophie Sewers who worked on several projects from the collection, including handkerchiefs from “The Goose Maiden”.

For the “Cinderella” exhibit, 39 right-footed shoes from the collection are shown, even a red leather Moroccan slipper. “Star Money” features a collection of German coins and “Brother and Sister” features things made of antlers, because in the story the brother turns into a deer.

A loaned display for “Brementown Musicians” shows eleven handmade German folk guitars dated 1870 to 1990 and loaned by Troy Tidwell. The musicians in the story are a donkey, a dog, a cat, and a rooster.

“Hansel and Gretel” features children dressed in German costumes and “Reponses” shows decorations made of human hair. There are about ten examples displayed in shadow boxes. This was a popular art at the time the emigrants came to New Braunfels.

Several fairy tales used the idea of a princess under glass. That even survived in the Snow White story by Disney. The exhibit is using their Scloss Braunfels Boyhood Home of Prince Carl of Solms/Braunfels under glass sculpture, created by Jonas Perkins. In the foyer of the museum is a permanent statue of “Little Redcap” or “Little Red Ridinghood”, donated by the Emmie Seele Faust family.

“The Seven Ravens” is about a baptism. The Sophienburg has been the recipient of many old church Baptism certificates. They are beautifully crafted, some using gold and exquisite colored flowers.

This exhibit is for those who want to know about the historic root of fairy tales. Museum hours are 10:00 to 4:00 Tuesday through Friday. The Bruder Grimm Kinder-Märchen Exhibit will be on display for a year.

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By Tara V. Kohlenberg —

Shopping for a wedding gift used to be something that I looked forward to. My most recent “gift shopping” experience involved scanning a QR code where I was then directed to a website to choose the appropriate item and clicking to send. Wow! So very anticlimactic. Where is the fun in that?

My first memory of going shopping for a wedding gift was at Dedeke’s in downtown New Braunfels. It was a beautiful store full of beautiful things. Tables were dressed in the finest table linens and perfectly set with china, silver and crystal to tempt any bride. The walls were lined with china place settings of nearly every pattern and color. Another part of that memory is the stern warning from my mother not to touch anything. I watched as my mother carefully selected a crystal pitcher and handed it to the clerk. It was so gratifying to walk out with our specially chosen, professionally wrapped gift to deliver in person.

Dedeke’s Housewares was a small store on Seguin Avenue that specialized in gifts and bridal registries in the 1950s-70s, but their story began much earlier. Richard F. Dedeke was born in New Braunfels in 1878. His grandfather, a farmer, had emigrated from Hannover in 1846. Richard’s father was a farmer and saddle maker. Richard was ambitious and in 1903, he sought his own fortunes in a thriving rural community of 200 people on York Creek. He purchased three lots in Hunter, Texas, between Grand and Railroad (now JC Riley) Streets to establish a residence and general merchandise store. A downturn in the cotton economy caused many of the Hunter businesses to close, including Dedeke’s General Store.

In 1928, R.F. Dedeke opened a new store in New Braunfels. The store was part of the ‘M’ System grocery chain. It opened at 215 S. Seguin Ave. (in the same brick building as The Oyster Bar). ‘M’ System was marketed as a new, self-serve way of shopping with multiple brand choices (as opposed to having a clerk bring a single brand from the shelf behind the counter). It sounds like the beginning of our current supermarket system.

R.F. Dedeke retired from his grocery business in 1951, and then the fun began. Richard’s son, Leslie Dedeke, and his siblings, Dorothy and Edward Dedeke opened Dedeke’s Housewares in the same location. In 1966, nearly a century after it was built, property at 173 S. Seguin Ave. was completely restored and the Dedeke family reopened the gift shop there. That is the beautiful store from my childhood. Even the patterned floor tiles were beautiful, but it was not beautiful before remodeling.

The Heinrich Krause building, located at 173 S. Seguin, already had a long history. The original part was built in the 1860s by Friedrich Krause and his son, Frederick Krause, who brought their carpentry skills with them from Germany. The first 45-foot section of the 24-foot-wide building (nearest to the street) is the oldest, built with squared cedar timbers. The next 45-foot section is of German Fachwerk, built with squared lumber. It had a small basement with rock walls and exposed square cedar timbers.

During the previous one hundred years, the one-story Krause building saw a lot of tenants. It was used by Weber & Deutsch, as an early general store; as an opera house; as a drill hall for a Texas Militia unit; as a blouse factory; as a barber shop and a newspaper office for Town & Country News. The Dedeke’s attention to detail and dedication to correct historical preservation of Krause building helped garner a Texas Historical Marker for the building, as well as honors from the New Braunfels Conservation Society.

In 1976, Dick and Bonnie Denson purchased the Dedeke’s business and it became Denson-Dedeke’s. In 1977, they also bought the entire property extending all the way to Comal Avenue, including the historic Krause building, the adjacent two-story Hoffmann building (on the left side of Denson-Dedeke), the parking lot in back, and the Mergele House on Comal.

In 1979, Sami’s Jewelry opened a kiosk at the front of Denson’s, near the windows. The large storage space in the back of the store was opened to create the perfect home for Marian Benson’s The Collection.

In 1981, the interior of the adjacent Mergele Building, was completely gutted by fire that spread from Ludwig Leather Company (two doors down from Denson’s). Fortunately, the tin roof and separation between the buildings prevented fire from damaging Denson’s. To prevent the building from being torn down, the Denson’s bought the Mergele Building and rebuilt the interior, preserving our Seguin Avenue merchant district. They opened up the walls between the two buildings and expanded their footprint again.

Upstairs in the Mergele Building, above retail space, were the Denson-Dedeke offices, and the very first home of Celebrations Bridal by Connie Worley. By incorporating three historic buildings with a courtyard and promoting complimentary retail tenants, Dick and Bonnie Denson successfully created a boutique shopping experience in a historic setting which eventually became Landmark Square.

The Mergele Building was sold to new owners in 1996. The rest of the property, including the Krause building, the Hoffmann building and the Mergele House on Comal Avenue, was sold in 1997 when the Densons retired. The Krause and Hoffmann properties have sold again in 2008 and 2018.

During that time, there have been multiple tenants of the Krause building, including photographers, marketing firms, a lingerie store and most recently a French café bistro.

When we look at historic buildings, we are spoiled and tend to look for the bigger, fancier, more ornate ones, i.e. the Court House (1884) or the row of buildings on San Antonio Street (circa 1890–1924). By doing that, we may be missing out on the hidden jewels (Krause building ca.1860) that make up the foundation of who New Braunfels is. Not slick. Not fancy. Historic.

Enjoy and appreciate the view and the experience, before you can only click on a QR code to see it. Preserve our history!

“Around the Sophienburg” is published every other weekend in the New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung.

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