The fall and failure of the Stock Market in 1929 was the beginning of an era in American history called the Great Depression. The statistics of this period are staggering. Almost half of the people in the United States had no jobs, homes or food.

Leading up to this period after WWI was a time of tremendous social change and all the turmoil that accompanies change. It was the 1920s. Women were demanding voting rights and ethnic groups were demanding equal rights.

Then the banks failed, the Stock Market fell and those who had saved or borrowed money, lost everything. Big cities seemed to be hit the hardest for that was where the factories were.

By 1931, the Great Depression was in full swing. Texas governor Ross Sterling declared a “Smile Day” in November of that year supporting the American Legion’s effort to alleviate the suffering that first winter. As if smiling could solve all the problems!

Records show that locally there were approximately 400 people affected known to be unemployed and in desperate condition. Jobs were mainly for men so there were many more people affected.

An organization calling itself the Associated Charities Group was organized to help those in need. This organization included a group of organizations that could easily be applied to today’s world, for these civic-minded groups have always been active: American Legion and Auxiliary, Concordia Singing Society, First Protestant Church and Sunday School, Jacob Schmidt Store, Women’s Civic Improvement Club, Comal County, Christian Science Church, Masonic Lodge A.F.A.M., St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, Business and Professional Women’s Club, NB Fire Department, A.J. Rabe, Child Welfare Club, Sts. Peter & Paul Catholic Church, Eastern Star, First Baptist Church, Methodist Church, Retail Merchants Association, and Lions Club. During that first year, 45 families were regularly helped.

Clothing drives were instigated by the Associated Christian Charities of America. Well known humorist Will Rogers performed in San Antonio and the proceeds were shared locally.

The local Lions Club was particularly busy. They distributed 1,400 pounds of beans that they had raised on their own experimental farm at the Comal County Fair Grounds. In addition, the club pledged a minimum of six full grown and fattened hogs a month. These hogs would be slaughtered and ready to be delivered to needy families.

Individuals and businesses had their own ways of helping out. For example, Kneuper Bros. Music Store next to the old Post Office did not repossess merchandise but allowed customers to pay what and when they could, sometimes as little as 25 cents a week. The brothers had added appliances to their merchandise so it was very important that customers could retain stoves, ice boxes and washers.

By the way, the Kneuper Bros. Store was the first business in town to have a television set in the early ‘50s. At night people would sit in front of the store window and watch the test pattern and a 5 minute film over and over.

Back to the 1930s. In my dad’s family there was a Depression story. Louis Adams, my grandfather, owned a butcher shop. During this terrible financial time, people would come in to buy meat without money. My grandfather told them that he would just write it on a slip of paper and they could pay when they could. I think he was able to do this because his source of meat was from his brother Bill Adams and the Adams Ranch. The Adams family helped a lot of people that way.

In 1931 Louis Adams died suddenly. My dad, who was left with the care of his mother plus his own family, was left penniless. Before Louis Adams died he had bought a three bedroom house on Comal St. which my grandmother then turned into a boarding house, mostly for her nieces. Their country school did not have a complete high school education, so they had to come to New Braunfels to finish school. The parents of these nieces brought ample produce from the farm to feed everyone at the house. Like my grandmother used to say, “You do what you have to do”. During this terrible time, President Herbert Hoover kept a message of resourcefulness as a way to solve problems. I think my family did that, but it wasn’t that easy for everyone.

One group of people that were affected were the farmers. Those who relied on crops and livestock were dealt another blow, the Dust Bowl and the boll weevil. The Dust Bowl was preceded by a long-lasting drought. Pictures of areas affected by this dust are hard to comprehend with clouds of dust moving across the land, pulling up plants by the roots leaving nothing but scorched earth.

Many of these farmers who had lost everything attempted to move towards the cities where they thought they had an opportunity to work and feed their families. When they got to the cities, there was no work and no transportation to return home. They survived on bread and soup lines supplied by various organizations, mainly the Red Cross. At the first opportunity they hopped on open train cars and moved from one place to another. These Hobos set up camps along the tracks, built fires to keep warm or cook whatever they were handed out in the cities.

Every big city had make-shift communities right outside of the city limits. They were called Hoovervilles because most Americans blamed the whole Great Depression on Pres. Herbert Hoover.

Here in New Braunfels, much of what we knew about the Depression came from newspapers and movies. Subtle little hints of the times can be found if you look hard enough at photographs of NB children at school during the 30s. No “store bought” clothes but dresses made of material from flour sacks. NB was fortunate to have the textile mill and Dittlinger Roller Mills. My generation even today sometimes suffer from what we call “Depression thinking”. We spent a long time appreciating handmade clothing articles. There’s a long way in between Homemade and Handmade.

Boys were lucky if they had cut-off pants from an older brother. None of the boys wore shoes and the girls went barefooted in the summer. I always wondered why, when we were constantly stepping on glass, sticker beds and rusty nails. We could have solved that problem by wearing shoes.

At the end of the 1930s the Great Depression was over, but taking its place in history was a period of much more magnitude when the US entered WWII.

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Have you heard of Sylvester’s Abend? Have you heard of New Year’s Eve? Two names for the same event. To arrive at the Gregorian calendar that we and most European countries use was not an easy process. Many changes took place before the final calendar set up by Pope Gregory XIII was adopted.

Sylvester’s Abend was what the German emigrants called New Year’s Eve, or Dec. 31st.The name “Sylvester” translates from Latin as “wild man”. The German “Abend” translates to “evening”. Sylvester’s Abend is named after a Pope of the Roman Catholic Church from 314 A.D. to 335 A.D. Ever since the Gregorian calendar was adopted by most of the world, the feast day celebrated Sylvester’s death on Dec. 31st. The name Sylvester’s Abend was used locally for many years but eventually changed to New Year’s Eve. The local German American Society still uses Sylvester’s Abend.

Speaking of Sylvester’s Abend traditions, some of the interpreters at the Sophienburg who grew up in Germany remember a practice carried out on New Year’s Eve called Bleigiessen or “lead pouring”. It resembles the practice of reading tea leaves to predict the next year’s events. A small amount of lead is melted in a spoon over a candle. Then the molten lead is poured into a bowl of water and the pattern that forms predicts events of the coming year. There is a long list of what these forms could mean. Sounds like an entertaining game.

Advertisements in the old Zeitung newspapers give a hint of how New Year’s Eve was celebrated locally. Dances at halls in town and in nearby settlements were prevalent. A popular early hall was Matzdorf Halle which eventually became Echo Hall and then finally, Eagles Hall. There were dances at Sweet Home Hall at Solms, Walhalla at Smithson’s Valley, Teutonia Halle, Anhalt, Landa Park, Reinarz Hall, Schwab Hall, Lenzen Hall, and smaller ones. Downtown Seekatz Opera House, built in 1901, was a popular dance hall with its stage, dressing rooms, kitchen, and large main floor with seats that could be removed easily for dances. An added feature was a balcony for onlookers and private club rooms on the second floor in the front of the building. At midnight the fire siren would blow.

All of the dances furnished trappings of the celebration of the coming of the New Year with noisemakers and fireworks. Designed to ward off evil, fireworks and noisemakers go back to ancient times.

In a Sophienburg Reflections program, the late Kola Zipp recalls a custom in her younger years (early 1920s) that had to do with New Year’s Eve. She called the practice “New Year’s Callers”. Young men would hire a carriage from the local livery stable and go out on New Year’s afternoon to visit girls. Girls would stay at home to welcome them and offer the boys wine. (That’s a switch) These New Year’s Callers would visit and then move on to the next house.

Marie Offermann and her sister Jeanette Felger often went to dances at Echo Hall as children with their parents. There was even baby-sitting service in one of the back rooms. People brought food that was placed in the basement under the stage. New Years was a dress-up time. Look at the picture.

New Year’s Eve is celebrated around the world, often with strange customs, from throwing dishes, to wearing red underwear, to congregating in a cemetery to ring in the New Year with departed loved ones. In France the wind direction predicted the year’s crops and weather and in Spain if one could consume 12 grapes in 12 seconds from midnight, good luck would follow.

Since the invention of television and computers, millions watch the New Year’s celebration at Times Square in New York. Since its beginning in 1907, a huge 12 foot diameter ball suspended above Times Square is lowered. When it reaches the bottom of the tower, it is midnight.

No New Year’s Eve celebration would be complete without the ever popular traditional song, “Auld Lang Syne”. Poet Robert Burns is given credit for translating the Scottish song. Here’s the last verse of Burns’ rendition:

And there’s a hand, my trusty fiere!(friend)
And gie’s a hand o’ thine!(give us your hand)
And we’ll tak a right guid-willie waught,(take a good-will draught)
For auld lang syne,(long, long ago)

Chorus:

For auld lang syne, my jo,
For auld lang syne
We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

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By Keva Hoffmann Boardman —

In May I traveled to Mason, Texas, with my mom and dad and met with some aunts, uncles and cousins to watch a 45-minute documentary: “Herman, der Apache: Ein Deutscher unter Indianen” (“Herman the Apache: A German among Indians”). The film, made by a German film crew for TV viewing in Germany, had been dubbed in English and was shown by the Mason County Historical Society. It is the incredible true story of Herman and Willie Lehmann’s capture by an Apache raiding party in 1870. The meet-up was a reunion of sorts. My mom’s family and the Lehmann family are cousins. I’ve always been proud of this blood connection.

I remember reading Herman’s autobiography, “Nine Years Among the Indians” (1927), and writing a book report on in it grade school. I read it aloud to my kiddos when we did a Native American unit (I homeschooled). I list it as suggested reading to teachers who visit the Sophienburg. According to J. Frank Dobie, it is “the finest of the captive narratives of the Southwest.”

Years ago, I attended a lecture on Native American tribes in our area. The archaeologist mentioned Herman Lehmann’s book with a definite snicker and said it was completely made-up. I took him aside afterwards and informed him that not only was the story true, but that I was related to the family — my mom being cousins with Esther, Herman’s niece. The archaeologist got really quiet and then apologized.

You really need to read Herman and Willie’s story to understand why this narrative is so compelling. I cannot condense the detailed memories of an 11-year-old German boy captured and raised by Apache and Comanche, nor will I really try. I will simply give you a taste of what is in store when you read the book.

Imagine that you, your brother and two little sisters are out in a field a little way from the house to chase the birds out of the ripening wheat. You look up to find there are eight Apache on horseback at the fence and, frightened, all begin to run, except for your baby sister who is hidden in the wheat. The Apache shoot at your other sister and she falls; they think she is dead. They get your brother and go after you. You are finally subdued after you have been slapped, choked, beaten and your clothes torn off.

You and your brother are each tied up naked to the back of a horse behind a warrior and spirited away from the only world you know. The group separates, each taking one captive. Totally alone you are made to catch a calf your group comes across. Your captor slits its throat, cuts open the stomach and drinks the soured milk out of it. He offers some to you which of course you refuse, so he pushes your face into the open stomach.

That’s just part of day one. Have I piqued your interest? It gets better, or worse, before it gets better again. Willie escapes after about a week and makes his way home. Herman isn’t returned to his family until he is 19.

I am fascinated at just how completely Herman becomes Apache. It wasn’t easy — not all captives survived — but he does and he does well. He is adopted into his captor’s family and initiated into tribal life. He describes being burned, beaten, tortured, whipped and other things that he cannot even talk about.

Herman eventually finds affection, respect and acceptance. He forgets his mother tongue and learns Apache. He is taught their customs and rituals: how to hunt with bow and arrow; raid, steal, fight with lance and shield, kill and scalp. He becomes a warrior tested in fights with Texas Rangers, Mexicans, white settlers and other native tribes. By age 16, the only thing that does not seem Apache about Herman are his blue eyes.

He spends six years with the Apache and a year alone in the wilderness before he is adopted into a Comanche tribe. He is Comanche in 1877, when he takes part in the Buffalo Hunters War, the last major fight between Native and Non-Native Americans in Texas. It is Quannah Parker who gets him to go to the reservation in Oklahoma and who adopts him as his son. In 1878, soldiers take Herman from Fort Sill and bring him back to Loyal Valley.

He was home. But he was no longer a German boy.

He knew Apache, Comanche and Spanish, but no German. He hated sleeping inside a house, so his brother Willie slept outside under the stars with him. He hated “paleface” clothing and often changed back into leggings and breach clout and painted his body. He stole the neighbors’ cows and horses. It took time to learn to be a white man, but the same character that allowed him to become Apache, served him well once again. Eventually he “fits in,” somewhat — even gets married and has children. But the “Indian” never left him.

My mom’s cousin Esther knew her “Uncle Herman” really well. She and her sister, Gerda, made an oral history recording about Herman for the Sophienburg in 1992. Herman came to live with his brother Willie in 1927, when Esther was three-and-a-half years old. She told us stories of sitting next to him as he told his Indian tales. She loved it when people would be over and he’d let out a war whoop just to make them jump. She helped him sneak fresh-killed deer down to the cellar when it was out of season, and watched him eating his deer meat raw, ground up with onion and salt. “He loved that life,” she would say. “They should have brought him back and let his mother know he was OK, then left him with the Indians. He would have been happier.”

And that is exactly what I took away from that documentary. Herman was perpetually caught between two worlds. That he was able to move between them at all is a miracle. That he found any happiness is amazing.

Herman Lehmann died in 1932 and is buried at Loyal Valley. Esther passed on in 2016 and is buried next to “Uncle Herman.”

One more thing … it is said that Esther was the last person to have known an Indian captive. Wow.

More on This Subject

Sources: Nine Years Among the Indians, 1870-1879, Herman Lehmann, 1927; The Captured: A True Story of Abduction by Indians on the Texas Frontier, Scott Zesch, 2004; “Nine Year’s with the Apaches and Comanches”, J. Marvin Hunter’s Frontier Times Magazine, July 1954; “Esther Lehmann: Herman’s Story”, Phil Houseal, Jan 8, 2014 and Feb 17,2016, Full House Productions; Esther Lehman and Gerda Lehman Kothman, “Reflections” #292, Sophienburg Museum & Archives.

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Education was of paramount importance to the German immigrants. Basic education classes were started for their youth in the more populated areas soon after their arrival to Texas. However, this was not the case for rural settlers where more formal education was slower in coming.

There are four phases of formal education that existed in the rural area of Comal County during the past one hundred seventy-two years.

In the first phase, rural settlers were kept busy clearing the land, building shelters and planting crops. Many times “book learning” was considered a luxury when compared to the necessities of making a living of the land. Many of the settlers had a good education and soon realized that their children did not have the same opportunity in the rural setting. After a while, usually some respectable individual took on the responsibility of teaching children in his immediate surrounding during the approximate 1845 to 1868 time period. A list of some of the dedicated individuals follows: Rev. August Engel (Cranes Mill), Albert Wunderlich (Potter’s Creek near Fischer), Adolph Schlameus (Herrera, Spring Branch, Fischer), Ferdinard Nehls Sr.(Solms),Carl Ohlrich (Smithson Valley), Rev. Louis C. Ervendberg (Orphan Home, Gruene area) and Anselm Eiband (Schoenthal). These dedicated teachers received no outside support except for appreciation and a few stipends from the neighbors for their loosely structured periodic classes.

The advancement of formal education throughout the years was very dependent on technical and social advances that existed during the time period. During the first phase of education, walking, riding horseback or in a wagon was the primary mode of transportation.

The second phase of education started in 1854 when the law establishing the first public system in Texas was enacted. At this time the county was divided into school districts with three trustees in charge of each district. Many of the schools were established by the local participants, and the State paid each district according to the number of students in the district. There were essentially 29 rural “one-room” schools in 21 “Common” districts in Comal County. The County Superintendent with the help of the County School Board managed all of the rural schools in the County. This era ended in the 1940s.

During this phase students used State issued text books and the use of community telephone became rather common. Cars were being added to the transportation system while many homes were still without electricity.

The third phase began when the rural population of the County grew smaller since next generation families were smaller in number or found work elsewhere. Many of the scattered rural schools no longer had a sustainable student base to exist. Individual small schools were not able to offer the variety of subjects needed for a well-rounded education. Thus, in 1944, the first Rural High School District (Sherwood Rural High School) was formed in northern part of the County by consolidating eight of the rural schools in the area. The next year, 1945, the Bulverde Rural High School was formed by consolidating six rural schools. The Goodwin Rural High School was formed from seven rural schools in 1949. The final Comal Settlement Rural High School was formed from five rural schools in 1958. The remaining three of the 29 rural schools became part of New Braunfels Independent School District (NBISD). The rural high schools offered instructions through the tenth grade.

By the 1940s, the roads had been greatly improved and busing transportation became more practical.

The fourth phase of education in the rural County began when NBISD had grown to the point when it could no longer accept the county school transfers to complete their requirements for an accredited high school diploma. Up to this point the New Braunfels High School was the only high school in the county. In November of 1956, the citizens of the county approved the creation of the Comal County Rural High School District with the County Superintendent as its administrator and a single board of trustees. In 1968, the district became the Comal Independent School (CISD). Now the district is independent of municipality, county or state lines, and the board is allowed to hire its own superintendent and deal with the State directly.

In 2016, the Comal Independent School District celebrated its 60^th year of Excellence is an Attitude motto.

As it is well known, many technical changes have occurred during the past sixty years. Community telephones were practically replaced with electronic devices (i.e. cell phones). Electronic communication, with easy updates, has practically replaced books, while television and computers made instant communication possible from almost anywhere in the world. Who knows what the fifth phase of education may be like.

More details on the phases of education can be found in the book entitled Rural Schools and Teachers in Comal County, 1854-1956 by Alton J. Rahe. The book, published in August 2017, is sold at the Sophienburg Museum and Archives and all proceeds from the sales of the book go to the Sophienburg.

Sources:

• [SOURCE]

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It’s the same business, in the same place, run by the same family for almost 92 years. That’s Doeppenschmidt Funeral Home, now involving the fourth generation. And it doesn’t look like they are going to run out of clients any time soon.

In the early 1900s, on the corner of Seguin Ave. and Mill St. where Doeppenschmidt’s is located, Balthesar Preiss operated a livery stable, feed store and transfer service. They met trains and rented carriages for shopping, balls, and weddings. By 1912, a new building housed Baetge & Stratemann livery, transfer, feed and stable. Also in the same building on the left-hand side was Ed. Baetge and Gus Stollewerk working for Balthesar Preiss & Co., undertakers. By 1916 the double business advertised Ed. Baetge and Mrs. Otto Stratemann running the B. Preiss & Co. livery and feed stable and Baetge and Curt Ruedrich as undertakers for B. Preiss & Co.

Oscar Doeppenschmidt bought out Baetge and bought the building from Otto Stratemann in 1923. Up until that time Doeppenschmidt had a “pressing parlor” (cleaning and pressing) on W. Castell St. located in a building in the parking lot across from the Convention Center. He also operated an auto service station at 400 W. Seguin Ave. which was the vicinity of the former Hollmig’s Drive Inn. There he advertised as an agent for Chandler and Hupmobile cars, oil and gas.

After Doeppenschmidt took over the business where it is now located, he hired A.C. Moeller in 1928 for the first remodeling of the building for $10,000, no small amount at that time. Now look at the photograph dated 1927 and you can see what Doeppeschmidt’s business included. The man on the far right is Oscar Doeppenschmidt in front of a hearse. Notice the curtains and urn in the window. Next to that is an ambulance. It looks like the hearse, but has a red cross on the window. Originally these vehicles could be changed from hearse to ambulance and vice-versa. The other vehicles in the lineup were used as taxis and buses. Bus service was provided daily between San Antonio and Austin. In the center of the building are two archways and inside is a waiting room. Drivers of the vehicles were Richard Moeller, Marvin Rheinlaender, and Alvin Winkler.

Notice also the two gas tanks with the Magnolia Oil Company display. The two story building was constructed with apartments upstairs. Possibly there was also a saloon, not at all unusual in New Braunfels.

Another remodeling took place in 1972. The business by this time was solely Doeppenschmidt Funeral Home. Doeppenschmidt’s advertisement in the Herald was “Everybody wants a neat funeral for a small fee, a blessing to the poor and a help to the rich.” The advertisement claimed, “No commercialism, a chapel for 200 people and has the appearance of a quiet corner of a cathedral.” And it claims that the embalming room is not the gloomy den Dickens pictured in one of his novels, but has white tiling and bears the resemblance of the operating room of a modern hospital.

Why is the building called a home? An advertisement in the newspaper shows that “home is a real concern to their patrons.” You enter the parlor, like in a house for an atmosphere of homelike comfort. Services held as if they were held in one’s own “home”. Wonderful floor covering was laid out by Johann Jahn. Otto Rabenaldt was the licensed embalmer, assisted by Alice Dickerhoff.

Some old-timers and some not so old remember some of the funeral practices here in New Braunfels. Before television and radio, a rather ominous looking notice was printed on a small 4×7 inch white card with black borders. These cards with the deceased name were distributed around town. The early, early ones were in German script. Homes were draped with the colors of mourning – black or shades of dark grey. Funeral wreaths were hung on the outside door and inside the house over pictures, doors and windows. Sometimes mirrors and portraits of the deceased were covered with light veils.

Thousands of years ago all over the world, there is evidence that black was the color of funerals. Fear of the departed, not respect for them, was the reason. Covering oneself with black garments protected the person from spirit possession by the deceased. Widows wore a veil and black clothing for a year to hide from her husband’s spirit. These color practices have been all but forgotten by the younger generation and a majority of the older generation say “thank goodness”.

Going against these customs of wearing black brought social ostracism to the widow. Remember how Scarlett O’Hara was ostracized in “Gone with the Wind” when she abandoned the black clothes for brighter ones? Customs influence many of our actions and sometimes we don’t even know why, but I would never wear a red dress to a funeral, but not because of fear of the spirit possession.

Since the spirit domain was darkness, candles were lit to keep the dark spirits away. This practice comes from ancient people’s use of funeral torches around the body. The word funeral comes from the Latin “fumus” meaning “torch”. Doeppenschmidt used to turn on a light outside when there was a body inside.

The term “funeral home” no doubt comes from the importance of the home for funerals long before funeral homes. When a person died, the family would lay the body somewhere in the home, usually the parlor. Relatives and friends were invited to view the body. Then a casket was chosen from the undertaker’s supply or one could be ordered. The first NB undertaker, Balthesar Preiss, made his caskets. Some caskets were closed and some were open with a glass covering. By the way, the word “casket” comes from the Greek “kophinos” meaning basket. You can guess why, can’t you? The body was restrained in a basket with a rock on top to keep the spirit from escaping. While burying six feet under was thought to be a good practice, the basket, and finally the coffin was even safer. After the six feet under practice, a large stone was put on top of the coffin to keep the soul inside, hence we have the word “tombstone”.

Four generations of the Doeppenschmidts have run the business started by O.A. Doeppenschmidt in 1923. After he died, his wife, Emmie, and their son Bennie and wife Ruth, ran the business. The last two generations are Carl and his daughter, Michele.

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