I really haven’t lived through a major war, but my mom and dad did. I have heard their stories and they are very different because Mom lived on a ranch/farm north of Fredericksburg and Dad lived in New Braunfels. Myra Lee Adams Goff grew up with my dad and she described those times through the eyes of the child she was then. In light of the current world situation, I thought it would be good to reprise Myra Lee’s article and see how New Braunfels coped back then with the uncertainty and fear that such times engender. — Keva Hoffmann Boardman

Around the Sophienburg, December 27, 2006

By Myra Lee Adams Goff —

It’s the end of December and this pesky little song has entered my head again and won’t leave. “Let’s remember Pearl Harbor as we did the Alamo.” I’m back in Julia Odiorne’s fourth-grade class at Lamar School. Earlier, on December 7, 1941, a surprise attack on the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor had suddenly plummeted our country into World War II. We sang this song with gusto because as Texans we would never forget the Alamo and now we would be called on to “Remember Pearl Harbor” forever.

Miss Odiorne tacked a map of the world on the wall that she had gotten from the Weekly Reader, a newspaper for children. Every time Germany won a battle, she would place a little swastika on the map and for Japan it was a little white flag with a red “rising sun” in the middle. Naturally when the U.S. won, there were stars and stripes. For all that first year, there were almost nothing but swastikas and red suns, and that was scary.

We kept on singing and doing our part as children. The Junior Texas Rangers, as the children were called, collected scrap metal and even gum wrappers. New Braunfels was cleaned out of scrap metal. Newsman Roger Nuhn wrote that school children collected over a half-million pounds of scrap, including the cannons on Main Plaza. My Girl Scout troop collected string and I never knew why. We folded bandages, and I did know why. The Red Cross was very active in that endeavor.

A Civil Defense League was formed under the leadership of Mayor Walter Sippel. Citizens were assigned to air raid shelters in basements of schools, churches and public buildings. Now get this: Lamar’s basement is about 10 x 10 and there were about 350 people living in the area. We would be mighty cozy. Mock air raids, announced by the fire siren, were conducted on a regular basis. We were, after all, close to the many military bases in San Antonio.

The PTA at Lamar installed blackout curtains in our auditorium so that if there was a bomb dropped on New Braunfels, the children would be hidden. I never really understood that either, because we never were at school at night, but at least once a week, we were able to see our geography movies without the interference of the sun.

Rationing had become a way of life. Sugar, gasoline and tires were all rationed. A family was issued ration stamps according to the size of the family. Cookies were not as plentiful, Hershey bars were not to be found, and no frivolous driving could be done. If a tire went bad, just park the car in the garage for the duration of the war. My friends and I walked everywhere.

Every family was encouraged to plant a Victory Garden and the water rates were lowered for that project.

Right down on Main Plaza there was a Center for Service Men in the old Landa Building (present day Commissioners Court parking lot). Open to all servicemen and women, they would arrive on buses from San Antonio on weekends. The downstairs had a radio, nickelodeon, piano, pool tables, card tables and lots of food provided by local clubs. Upstairs there were 100 beds. Dances were planned at the center as well as at Landa Park. Thousands of servicemen and women would come to New Braunfels on weekends. In the end, 73,000 servicemen and women registered at the center.

Making money for the war effort was a big thing. The selling of war bonds was a huge activity and each county was expected to sell an allotted amount.

We sat in front of the radio as we now do the television. The news was always bad and as young teenagers, we listened to the terrible problems of Stella Dallas and One Man’s Family, two popular radio soap operas. “If you think you’ve got it bad, think about their problems.” Father Barber solved his family’s problems with a calming, “Yes, yes.” That was it.

When the war was over in 1945, the newsreels of the concentration camps that were in the movie theatres were shockingly real, and we knew then the importance of sacrifice. Almost 1,500 men and women served their country from New Braunfels, and sadly 38 gave up their lives.

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

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Come celebrate our Declaration of Independence once again with the Sophienburg’s July 4^th celebration and parade. The parade will begin at 9:15 so be at the Plaza early. I have invited a ghost from the past to be there. John Torrey will surely be at his old stomping grounds in spirit.

Who was John Torrey? I wrote an article about John Torrey Feb. 23, 2010. A little more detail of the John Torrey story takes us back to why and how he became such a prominent person in the settlement of New Braunfels.

There were seven Torrey brothers from Connecticut. Two stayed in Connecticut, two were killed in Texas and three, John, David, and Thomas, formed the Torrey Brothers Trading House in Houston in 1836. This trading company became a very important strategy of Sam Houston’s peace policy with the Indians. With a significant fur trade, there were several branch stores in Texas that brought the Indians and the settlers together.

The Torrey brothers in 1844 furnished Prince Carl with ammunition, swords, and arms for the soldiers that Prince Carl had organized to protect the newly arrived emigrants. John Torrey was with Prince Carl as he inspected the New Braunfels property right before the settlers crossed the Guadalupe. Later when John Meusebach became the second commissioner-general after Prince Carl left, David Torrey drew up a contract to help transport those emigrants who needed transportation from Indianola.

This connection with the Adelsverein is what brought the Torreys to New Braunfels in 1846. Here John conducted a trading business on the corner of San Antonio and Hill Sts. where he ground corn into cornmeal for the settlers for 10 cents a bushel. Then Torrey moved closer to where we are celebrating July 4^th. While you’re standing around the Plaza, take a look over at the UPS building on the corner of San Antonio St. and Seguin Ave. This location is the first recorded deed of John Torrey in May 1847 when he built a store on that corner. He leased this property from Penelope Hunter of San Antonio for $30 a year. The property encompassed the corner lot all the way to the present Black Whale. This property had first been granted to Nicholas Reidel by the German Emigration Co. One of the lease agreements with Mrs. Hunter was that it was not to be used as a saloon or boarding house without her permission. That agreement didn’t last long because in a few years that very building became the saloon of Ferdinand Simon.

Now from the Plaza, you’re just a hop, skip and jump to the San Antonio St. Bridge. Before you go on to the bridge, look to the right where the Dittlinger office building is located (ADM). This was approximately where the John Torrey homestead was located.

A little bridge background: There had to be a bridge from the settlement of New Braunfels and Comaltown. The earliest bridge, known as the Pecan Bridge and described by Hermann Seele, pinpoints the location of a pecan foot bridge on an island at the juncture of the Comal River and Comal Creek. Two pecan trees, one on each bank of the Comal, had been felled onto the island. Pedestrians crossed back and forth between NB and Comaltown holding on to handrails. This bridge was at the foot of Bridge St.

The first wagon bridge built across the Comal by the city was in 1856. This bridge made of timber was located diagonally from the foot of Mill St. to the north edge of San Antonio St. After ten years another bridge was built there in 1866 only to be partially destroyed by a flood in 1869. This bridge was repaired and then completely torn away by another flood in 1870. The city built an iron wagon bridge in the same location as these two bridges, but once again a flood in 1872 washed it away.

Merchant C.C. Floege built a low water crossing in 1872 that lasted until 1894 when it was replaced by the high water structure built from scrap metal from the Chicago World’s Fair. Then in 1923 the concrete bridge now in use was built.

Now that you’re on the concrete bridge, you can look down to where the John Torrey mill used to be. In 1848 Torrey entered into a lease agreement with Hermann Speiss trustee of the German Emigration Co. to build a mill. The lease was for 1 4/5 acres for $75 a year for a parcel of land in New Braunfels at the juncture of Comal Creek (River) and the Comal Springs, the place being at the “falls”. Oscar Haas tells us that the falls was the only one on the Comal River and it is there that Torrey built a dam to use the water power for his mill. Torrey entered into an agreement with Willis E. Park to build a saw and grist mill. He later added facilities for the manufacture of wheat flour and a shop for making doors, sashes and blinds. It was destroyed by fire in 1861. Immediately Torrey put up a three story stone building. In 1863 he was joined by the Runge brothers of Indianola and they were granted a charter by the State of Texas to import cotton cloth weaving machinery, duty free. Six years later in 1869 a tornado destroyed the top floor and all the machinery. He had a roof placed over the second story and then in 1872 a cloudburst caused a flood tearing the foundation and destroying the recently rebuilt dam.

Today part of the foundation can still be seen at the Clemens Dam at the foot of Mill Street. It has been said that fire, wind, and water plotted against John Torrey’s efforts on the Comal River. Torrey, defeated, moved to land which he had bought in North Texas. After all of this explanation, I could have told you that it was where the Tube Chute is, right?

John Torrey, like William Meriwether and Harry Landa, were true industrialists. They knew what water power could do. Torrey bought a great deal of land in Comaltown. He hired J.J. Groos to plot out the Braunfels Subdivision. He gave the land on which the Comal Cemetery is located to the City of New Braunfels. Torrey Street is named after him because of the amount of land that he owned. Also Torrey Park is named after him. The mill site was honored by the State of Texas during the Centennial of Texas Independence in 1936 with an historical marker at the location of the mill.

To walk or ride in the parade, an application is required and a patriotic theme is essential. Whatever you do, come join us!

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