I recently found photos of Alfred Selke in the Oscar Haas collection. In August 1926, Selke and several coworkers were walking around the grounds of the new Comal Power Supply Co. (LCRA). They caught what he described as a “lobster” in the millrace pond. The group gathered for photos to chronicle the oddity including displaying the “lobster” on a cloth to show its size. Knowing it couldn’t be a lobster, I decided it must have been a great-granddaddy of a crawfish. When Charlie Nowotny came in to do his volunteer time at the Sophienburg, he saw the photo and informed me I was wrong.

“It’s a prawn. I caught one once.”

Now Charlie has at least a million stories to tell, so I wasn’t completely sold on that identification. Together we googled “giant fresh-water prawn” and there it was: Macrobrachium rosenbergii. Needless to say, I was humbled. Charlie was smirking contentedly.

Charlie’s dad, Clarence Nowotny, worked 43 years for Dittlinger Flour Mill which was across the road from the new power plant. On Saturdays, Charlie would come into town with his dad and while his dad worked, Charlie fished. This was back in the 1940s and Charlie was just a kid.

As an historian, I am all about connections and I love this one. Mr. Selke would see Charlie fishing and would walk over from the power plant and tell him he couldn’t fish in the millrace pond. 10 year-old Charlie would say “Yes, sir,” and walk away; respecting your elders was a big thing back then. He would pick up his gear and walk behind one of the buildings and wait for Mr. Selke to go back inside the power plant. Of course he would return to his fishing spot once the coast was clear.

On one occasion, Charlie and friends caught one of the giant fresh-water prawns – 20 years later in the same pond where Mr. Selke had caught his “lobster”. Charlie took the giant prawn home with him and released it into the cattle tank on their property off 306 where it lived for many, many years. Sometimes the prawn would sit out on the edge absolutely still. “You could swear it had died,” recalls Charlie, “but you would take a stick and poke it and off it would go into the water.”

Charlie’s fish tales don’t stop there. He and his dad also fished the Comal for bass, catfish, and Rio Grande perch. If they caught a bunch of perch – say 30-40 – Charlie’s dad would drive through Comaltown on the way home and give the whole burlap sack of perch to a family they knew in need of a little neighborly help. The bass and catfish would be taken to the cattle tank and released.

During the drought in the mid 1950s, that old cattle tank was drying up. Charlie’s dad asked the local game warden, Bill Sumbling, if he could borrow the seining net. The Nowotnys used the net to drag the tank. They caught and then released over 1500 catfish fingerlings into the Comal River. Charlie swears that the catfish caught in the park today are the progeny of those little fingerlings saved from the drought.

People have told stories of eels and alligators found in the Comal and Guadalupe Rivers in the early years of New Braunfels. A story ran in the NB Herald, on June 24, 1938, about Mayor Sippel sighting a nine-foot alligator on his property at Solms Creek. He called in Marshal Knetsch who came and dispatched the creature. The Herald reported, “Though he never knew it, Mr. Alligator spent the remainder of the afternoon posing with his captors while Mr. Seidel snapped pictures.” True story; the photos are in the Seidel collection at the Sophienburg.

By the time Charlie and his buddies were fishing the rivers, the only alligators they caught were alligator gars. According to him, not only the most, but the biggest specimens were found below the Schumannsville Dam, south of New Braunfels, on the Guadalupe River. Here, the boys and young men would compete to see who could land the largest gar. Charlie’s dad Clarence hooked “a big one” and “worried that thing for over 40 minutes.” When he finally landed the monster, they discovered he had hooked it in the back fin!

Fish tales – you gotta love ‘em.

Sources:

• Oscar Haas collection-Selke photos
• New Braunfels Herald, June 24, 1938
• Interview with Charlie Nowotny

The post Fish Tales appeared first on Sophies Shop.

There is one historian’s name in New Braunfels that is mentioned over and over. After writing this column for the last nine years, and writing a few books, I can’t begin to tell you how many times his name is mentioned as a writer or a translator. Somehow the name slips in there before you know it. The person to whom I refer, is Oscar Haas.

Haas’ material is widely used and the Sophienburg has a vast collection of his papers, published and unpublished. As far as historical writers, the same can be said for Hermann Seele and Jacob Lindheimer but not to the extent of Oscar Haas’ contribution.

Sophienburg volunteer, Ralph Koch, is presently going through and organizing material from the Oscar Haas collection.

Oscar Haas was born on October 12, 1885, on a farm in Cranes Mill in Comal County. He was the oldest child of Ernst Georg Haas and Ottilie Rochau Haas. Both families were German immigrants. The families had moved to the Cranes Mill “mountains” soon after the Civil War. The farm is 16 miles west of New Braunfels and now is under the water of Canyon Lake.

Haas spent much of his early childhood on the Little Blanco River in Blanco County. He attended a little country school called the Twin Sisters School.

In 1897, the family moved to New Braunfels and he started the third grade at the New Braunfels Academy on Mill St. Right after finishing the sixth grade at this school, he began working for druggist August Forke. Forke owned the pharmacy and this building is the famous Forke Store now located at Conservation Plaza. I say famous because so many NB events have been held in this building with its old floors that retain its old atmosphere.

Obviously Oscar Haas was a bright, curious boy. Riding his bicycle along country roads, he would sketch buildings and people. The Sophienburg Museum has a large collection of Native American arrowheads that he gathered mostly in the Landa Park area. It is a beautiful mounted collection hanging in the Native American exhibit and contains spear points, flint knives, scrapers as well as the arrowheads.

In 1918 Oscar married Clara Amelia Conring and eventually she became a partner with him in his search for the history that both of them came to love.

As a young man he worked for the large mercantile store of Pfeuffer and Holm as a salesman of men’s clothing. This led to a brief partnership in the retail clothing and dry goods business. His store was directly across from the First Protestant Church and the building was eventually moved to Gruene.

A real break in Haas’ life occurred when he was elected county treasurer in 1934, a position he held for 28 years. By 1940 he had begun the discovery, collection and translation of old county records in the courthouse. Around that time, courthouses all over the state began getting rid of old records because of crowded conditions. There was a feeling that these records had no value, but Haas knew better. He saved the county records and had them recorded in the Texas State Archives. It was from these records that he began writing articles for publication in the New Braunfels Zeitung and the New Braunfels Herald. He wrote a column called “Know Comal County” in which he translated the old Commissioners Court records from German to English. Starting with the year 1846, he revealed to the current population of the county what had happened 100 years earlier. This series ran for three years in both newspapers. Following this series was another series called “99 and 100 Years Ago in New Braunfels.”

Hermann Seele was an early writer who wrote history and stories about New Braunfels. Seele arrived in the settlement in May of 1845. His recollections gave us complete descriptions of those early years. Of course, they were written in German, but Haas could translate them. An important literary work that Haas translated was Seele’s “Die Cypress”, a collection of non-fictional and fictional stories. This book makes excellent reading and can be purchased at Sophie’s Shop at the Sophienburg.

Another translation by Haas was Fritz Goldbeck’s historic poems describing New Braunfels. This to me was a very difficult translation, as it is hard to translate poetry from one language to another. Next came the translation of Prince Carl’s papers in which he recorded everything about the colonization project. Now just imagine this project. He translated the German “Fraktur”, the German equivalent of English script. Most of the German letters don’t even look like the English letters. I will say this, however, he probably learned this script at the country school at Twin Sisters. My dad learned this Fraktur going to school in the country, but my mother did not. She went to school in NB where she was taught English and German was a second language.

In 1961 Clara Haas joined her husband in his next venture, a series of 144 installments for the New Braunfels Zeitung. It was “Comal County in the Civil War” translated from the writings of Ferdinand Lindheimer. These translations were in the newspapers in the 1960s.

Retiring from the position of county treasurer in order to work on his large collection of historic materials, he began work on producing the history book “History of New Braunfels and Comal County, Texas; 1844-1946.” This book, published in 1968, is for sale at Sophie’s Shop and has become the #1 aid to historians researching history of the area.

Other publications were: “The First Protestant Church, Its History and its People 1845-1955”; also a translation of the Civil War Diary of Capt. Julius Giesecke and “History of the Singers and German Songs of Texas.”

All of this activity in writing did not go without reward. Early on, Haas was honored with several awards. The Historical Society of the Evangelical and Reformed Church honored him for historic church writing and the San Antonio Conservation Society History Award was given to him in 1966. Last, the Comal County Chamber of Commerce honored him with their annual Besserung Award for Outstanding Community Service.

Much of the information for this article was gathered from writings by Brenda Anderson Lindemann, Crystal Sasse Ragsdale and the Dolph Briscoe Center of American History, the University of Texas, Austin.

Oscar Haas died in 1981, but his accomplishments will live on for as long as there is a need for history.

The post Oscar Haas’ research used by many for over 75 years appeared first on Sophies Shop.

You have to admit that in South Texas it’s sometimes hard to get in the Christmas spirit. Where is the snow and the one-horse open sleigh, ho, ho, ho? The Sophienburg Museum and Archives tries its best to create the Christmas atmosphere in the Civic Center during its fund-raising Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas market).

Every year for the last 25 years, the decorating committee would strive to decorate with something a little bit different and this year they hit the jackpot. Both of the halls will be decorated as usual, but look at the small ballroom stage! Donna and Cody Debner and Beverly and Clark Wigley came up with the idea for decorating the stage behind Sophie’s Café with something that they knew a great deal about. They would create a miniature Neuremburg Christkindlesmarkt.

The Debners and the Wigleys met in Germany in 1977 when both husbands were in the Air Force. The two couples traveled together in the early 2000s and Christmas markets were their favorite destination, particularly in Neuremburg. Christmas markets go way back in Germany and the Neuremburg Market started in 1628. All kinds of craftsmen brought their goods to the market to sell and over the years the market moved to various places. In 1933 it moved to the Main Market Square in the town.

During WWII there was no market held in Neuremburg. It was one of the most bombed- out areas in Germany, but after the war in 1948, the custom was revived and held in the destroyed Old Town among the ruins. Even today, each vendor creates a small area with a red and white striped awning over it. The red and white awnings are actually the colors of the flag of the city of Neuremburg.

The stage at the Civic Center will be adorned with large examples of German Folk Art called Schwibbögen. Perhaps you have seen these arches and didn’t know what they were. Here’s the explanation:

In the Erzgebirge Mountains (Ore Mountains), on the border with Czechoslovakia, is an area of silver and iron mines. A long-standing tradition of that area is construction of small arches to put in windows of the homes. These arches were made of iron and contained seven candles across the arch. The tradition of these objects in the windows was to welcome home the miners at Christmas. The light of the candles represented the only time that work stopped for the miners and so it was a happy time.

As the miners made their way through the snow, they were welcomed home by these candle-lit arches. During Christmas, large Schwibbögen are set up in churches and public buildings. They are decorated with many scenes such as the Nativity, family, hunters, houses and German scenery. For many years the Schwibbögen were hand carved of a very soft wood. Some of them are painted, but most are left to the natural beauty of the wood.

There will be two Schwibbögen five feet tall and nine feet wide on the stage with a traditional Christmas tree between the two. This tree will be decorated with candles (electric) and German straw ornaments. The Germans are not the only people who claim that they originated the Christmas tree, although Martin Luther is the person who has gotten the most credit. The story is that he looked at the night star-filled sky and decided to decorate his indoor tree with candles representing the stars. It seems that the only prerequisite for a Christmas tree is that it has to still be green in December. When the immigrants came to New Braunfels and were looking around for a green tree, preferably a fir tree, they found the cedar. What do we find now? An artificial tree, mostly green, but sometimes even pink. In the late 1800s Sears and Roebuck offered artificial Christmas trees sold by the number of limbs, 33 limbs for $.50 and 55 limbs for $1.00.

Are you familiar with the Weihnachtspyramiden (Christmas pyramid)? It is a reasonable facsimile of a Christmas tree made of finely carved wood with candles at the base that make the top spin. These were quite popular when trees were brought inside. They are beautiful works of art and most are very expensive.

The Schwibbögen on the stage will be left in their original wood and decorated with a wintry mountain scene in Germany. Quaint miniature houses will overlook a festively decorated Christmas market complete with red and white awnings. The arches were designed and drawn by Wilfred Schlather and constructed and decorated by the Wigleys and Debners. Schlather is a devoted volunteer at the Sophienburg besides writing a book about the Civil War in Comal County. It can be purchased at Sophie’s Shop.

The tables in Sophie’s Café in front of the stage allows one to sit and rest, eat German food, and then get up and shop again. The lantern centerpieces decorated by Donna Debner can be purchased at Sophie’s Shop.

Weihnachtsmarkt is organized by the staff at the Sophienburg with Linda Dietert as Executive Director. Hundreds of volunteers give of their time and hundreds contribute, but the Museum and Archives needs you to help their large mission of keeping history alive in New Braunfels.

Weihnachtsmarkt is the largest money-making event that the Sophienburg has. Other fundraisers are the Sophie’s Shop at Wurstfest and a brand new upcoming event on Februray 28, 2015. It is called “Braunfest” on the grounds of the Sophienburg. Watch for details of this new event.

Weihnachtsmark will open its doors at 10 a.m. this Friday and will run through Sunday. Even if it’s 90 degrees outside, you will immediately get that cold winter feeling.

The post Weihnachtsmarkt opens this Friday at the Civic Center appeared first on Sophies Shop.