By Keva Hoffmann Boardman —

Emmie was not just any little girl. Born Sept 15, 1867, she was the daughter of civic and cultural leader Hermann Seele and his wife Mathilde nee Blum.

Much was expected of Emmie.

Hermann Seele was known as “The Soul of New Braunfels”, a name given him in honor of his impact on the newly founded town. In German, Seele means soul – his name was quite prophetic. He was the first school teacher in NB, holding classes in an elm grove on Coll Street just three months after the emigrants’ arrival to the banks of the Guadalupe and Comal Rivers. Seele organized traditional German societies to protect and keep the cultures of the “Old Country” alive. Vereins (Clubs) and parades like the Gesangverein (singing club), the Drama Club, the Türnverein (gymnastic club), Maifest (May Day) and Kindermaskenball and Parade (children’s masked) promoted both health and culture and kept the German language and literature alive.

Hermann Seele petitioned and got one of the State’s earliest school charters from the Texas Legislature for the formation of the New Braunfels Academy, the first public school in NB. He also helped win the lawsuit of the Veramendi heirs vs the citizens of NB, giving townfolks peace of mind and continued ownership of their property.

Seele was mayor and alderman, preacher and teacher and statesman — a tough act to follow, but Emmie did just that.

Emmie grew up amongst the second generation of the families who had immigrated to Texas. Her father’s stature in town assured her place in town society. She learned, played and worked with members of leading families such as Clemens, Faust, Moreau, Lindheimer, Voelcker, Forcke, Klappenbach and many more. Emmie attended the New Braunfels Academy, however, her father was no longer teaching. She was taught to sew, play several instruments and speak and perform in public (Declamation was a subject in school). Emmie participated in parades, played bridge and performed in plays.

In 1893, she married John Faust, one of the sons of Joseph Faust. Joseph, along with Mr. Clemens and Mr. Tipps, founded The First National Bank in 1881. Son John was also in banking, as well as merchandising, cotton buying and other lucrative endeavors. Throughout their marriage, John and Emmie travelled extensively, taking ocean liners to Europe, and trains to Mexico and parts of the US. Local newspapers record a 1904 trip to Mardi Gras in NOLA and to the St. Louis World’s Fair. They had one of the first automobiles in town and drove to San Antonio to watch “motion pictures”.

Emmie gave birth to twins within their first year of marriage; sadly, one child died at birth leaving them with only their daughter Stella. Stella contracted malaria and the Fausts took her to several health resorts including San Antonio and Mineral Wells and to doctors in San Antonio and Houston.

In 1905, the Fausts moved into their grand new home built on the 300 block of W. San Antonio Street. Still standing, this lovely, ornate, Queen Anne-style home cost $6,700 to build. The contractor/builder, Adolph Moeller, reportedly fell off a 20’ scaffolding while working on the home and ended up with “a slight head injury”.

Emmie and John doted on little Stella. She had tea parties with friends and her Seele cousins. They bought Stella wonderful life-size plaster statues in Germany of Rotkãppchen und der Wolf. These graced the landing of the ornate main staircase of the Faust Home. They were later given to the Sophienburg Museum where they still delight children and adults alike.

Stella Faust died in 1908 at the age of 14 years. It was not unexpected but hit the parents hard. John died in 1926 at the age of 65. Emmie dove head-first into philanthropic works, many benefitting the children of New Braunfels. Her tireless good works and generosity soon earned her the name of “Tante Emmie” (Aunt Emmie) from the many real and “adopted” nieces and nephews in the community.

Tante Emmie was a founding member of the Sophienburg Memorial Association in 1925, and a major contributor and donor to the building of the Sophienburg Museum in 1933. Through her time, efforts, planning and money, she built the city’s first public library in 1938. The cost of $7,500 was paid by her alone as a gift to the children and citizens of New Braunfels. No wonder they named it the Emmie Seele Faust Library in her honor.

Tante Emmie then bought and had installed the first traffic light in New Braunfels. Placed at the intersection of W. San Antonio and Academy Streets, it provided safe crossing for the schoolchildren who had to walk from the Academy to the new library on Coll Street.

Tante Emmie served on city anniversary and various parade committees including Maifest, the May Day celebration begun by her father. She was a major organizer of the 1946 Texas German Pioneer celebration, which included the unveiling of the bronze and granite German Pioneer Monument created by the sculptor Hugo Villa. It stands in Landa Park.

Tante Emmie was a longtime member the NB Bridge Club, the NB Garden Club and the Concordia Gesangverein (singing club). She was instrumental in the formation of the NB Parent-Teachers Association and a member of the NB Music Club.

Tante Emmie was one of the tireless ladies of the Womens Civic Improvement Club and a donor to their projects, some of which were a shelter out at the cemetery and building a women’s bathroom under the Bandstand on Main Plaza. As a woman, having a bathroom on the Plaza was/is a stroke of genius!

Tante Emmie was also generous to New Braunfels hospitals. She donated “a new electrical suction and ether apparatus” for use in the old Krankenhaus which made it easier to remove the tonsils and adenoids of children. She later made the largest single donation towards the building of the new New Braunfels Hospital.

Tante Emmie was a member of the German Protestant (First Protestant) Church. She was active in the adult choir, the Frauenverein (womens club) and served as church organist for 14 years. She attended services regularly until a few weeks prior to her death; on cold Sundays she could be seen sitting at the back with a mink stole around her shoulders. She also contributed to the construction of the Seele Parish Hall which was named in honor of her father.

Emmie Seele Faust died quietly at her home in New Braunfels on Sept 28, 1957 — just two weeks after her 90th Birthday.

An Oscar Haas article in a 1950 edition of The Austin American newspaper contained this quote from Tante Emmie:

“All my life, my heart’s desires have been centered in the civic interests of my home city, the city my father helped to establish in 1845. Here, he married. Here, he reared his family. Our family grew up with this community.”

In German we have a saying, “Die Apfel fãllt nicht weit vom Stamm.” (The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.) Tante Emmie, like her father Hermann Seele, gave to her community in ways we still enjoy today. As one of a later generation of adopted “nieces and nephews” of Tante Emmie, I am thankful for her energetic generosity and truly proud of her amazing legacy in New Braunfels.

Well done, Emmie.

Sources: Neu Braunfelser Zeitung, New Braunfels Herald, New Braunfels Zeitung-Chronicle, The Austin-American; Sophienburg Museum & Archives.

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Recently Brenda Anderson-Lindemann released her new book, “Bridging Spring Branch and Comal County, Texas.” What an interesting collection of true family stories of the people living in that area back to the early 1850s. Some of the subjects that she covers are rural schools and how the Comal Independent School District started. She has many stories of the early days, who’s in what cemetery, ranchland histories, obituaries, Canyon Dam, the Guadalupe, and history of floods in the area. The cover and title of the book are clever and appropriate. It is a picture of the U.S. Highway 281 Guadalupe River Bridge taken by Michael Krause.

This past week when we had so much rain, I knew immediately where to find information about floods, droughts and rainfall in Comal County. The book has so much information in it that it is impossible to give an adequate book review. I began reading the 474 page book and I was overwhelmed by a choice I had to make as to what to write about. Then almost at the end, I found my choice.

Pastor August Engel

Towards the back of the book my attention led me to Pastor August Engel. I had mentioned him before when I wrote about what was at the bottom of Canyon Lake, but Brenda had much more information.

My interest in Pastor Engel is because of my neighbor, Olive Marcel Georg Hofheinz. When she was a teenager and I was in Lamar Elementary, she lived in the house that my great-grandparents lived in and sold to her parents, Hollis and Hedwig (Artie) Georg. To this day, she reminds me that while I was visiting her mother, which apparently I did often, I cut up her brand new pajamas. Young girls are fascinated with and admire teenage girls. She had a small radio and she pasted her friends’ names out of alphabet soup on the outside. You never forget the teenagers who were kind to you when you were young.

Olive (Marci) and Will Hofheinz lived most of their married life in Dickinson and when Marci’s parents died, the Hofheinzs moved into the house next to ours. Our friendship continued. During the summer when my teaching career was on vacation, Marci and I would walk to the Comal Cemetery. Through our conversation, I became acquainted with the residents of this cemetery. She told me stories of the people and really got me interested in who was related to whom, a skill that I have perfected to this day.

Marci wrote what she remembered about her great-grandfather, August Engel. I immediately knew that his life would be interesting, remembering Marci’s ability to tell a story. I chose Engel’s story to write about based on what she told Brenda in an interview. I knew it would be informative because Marci’s family, the Engels and the Georgs, are from old families in the Spring Branch area and buried in the Cranes Mill Cemetery.

August Engel was born March 16^th, 1818, in Wurthemberg, Prussia. He was schooled at the Evangelischam Akademy Bad Bol Stuttgart. He was ordained a Methodist Episcopal minister. His parents owned a woolen factory in Germany. At that time, factories in England were able to make products out of wool at a lesser cost than the Engels could in Germany. Consequently, the parents decided to send their two sons, August and Wilhelm, to England to investigate the English woolen industry. Apparently their conclusion was that they would not be able to compete with the English companies.

The two brothers took off traveling around Europe and while they were traveling, they heard about the emigration movement to the United States. They decided they wanted to emigrate. August was married at the time, but his wife refused to leave Germany, so August and Wilhelm left alone. They arrived in America and Wilhelm stayed in Pennsylvania and became a newspaperman. Ironically, years later August’s son August W. became a journalist and eventually owned the “Arkansas Democrat” newspaper in 1926. His nephew, Marcus Georg (Marci’s brother) worked with his uncle and eventually owned the newspaper. He sold the newspaper and bought a TV station.

Back to the brothers August and Wilhelm. August was the one who emigrated to Texas. Coming to Cranes Mill in the mid-1800s, he opened a store and after the Civil War he became a postmaster in that store from 1873 to 1904. He also began his profession as a Methodist preacher. He found that most of the Protestants in the Hill Country were German Lutherans. He was granted permission to change to the Lutheran faith and become a circuit riding preacher in a tri-county territory of Cranes Mill, Rebecca Creek, and Twin Sisters in the Guadalupe Valley. Marriage records show that he also served people of Bulverde, Smithsons Valley, Spring Branch and Kendalia.

August Engel married Katherine Ernst. Remember that August was married in Germany? Because August had been away from his wife for nine years, he was granted a divorce. Katherine was a midwife, nurse, and she prepared bodies for funerals. She charged $3 to help deliver a baby and then would stay as long as ten days helping with what needed to be done around the house so that the mother could recuperate. Pastor Engel would drive Katherine in a buggy to the home where she was needed and then come back to pick her up.

Together the couple took care of burials. Katherine would bathe and dress the body and place two silver dollars over the eyelids. Within 24 hours the body had to be buried, as there was no embalming fluid at that time. Pastor Engel performed the burial service, usually on private land of the deceased. The coins were removed before burial. Hundreds of burials were conducted and Pastor Engel kept records of all births, baptisms, weddings and funerals.

The photo is an example of the kind of baptismal certificates issued in the early days. It is in German script and translated it says:

Birth and Baptism
The two parents are August Jonas and Sophia Yablsey Jonas
14^th December 1873
A boy in Blanco County, State of Texas, United States of North America
Baptized in 1875 by Pastor Engel
Pastor Engel named him Benjamin Adolph (this is the first time the child is named in the document)
Godparents are Adolph Jonas, Heinrich Braemer, Miss Matilda Rochau
Signed August Engel in Twin Sisters Blanco Texas

August Engel died in 1904. Several years before his death, many records were lost as a result of an Indian confrontation where his satchel was stolen (a brutal story that you can read in Brenda’s book). Mrs. Engel lived on in the house after he died and years later during a very cold winter, she used many of the remaining records to burn in the wood burning stove. She had run out of firewood and probably didn’t know the value of records like that.

To purchase Brenda Anderson-Lindemann’s book, you may contact her at 830-228-5245 or purchase it at Sophie’s Shop at the Sophienburg Museum and Archives.

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