THE INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM
INTERVIEW WITH: Louise and victor Nixon
DATE: September IS, 1987
PLACE: Fredericksburg, Texas
INTERVIEWERS: Bill and Prec ious Gregg
BG: We're in Fredericksburg, Texas, in the home of Mrs.
Louise Nixon, which was, incidently, hard for us to find.
That's another story. Another day. Anyhow, Mrs. Nixon , we
are safely ensconced here now, and we just want to ask some
things. I have some questions. If we seem to run short of
conversation pieces, but of course, what we're p lainly
interes ted in is not today, or even yesterday, but anything
before yesterday or the day before that that you might
recall. Your childhood or what your grandmother said, or
... we're here to get the old time s before everybody
forgets.
LN: That's so true. In fact, I'm writing those facts down
for my children now.
BG: I hope you noticed that, Esther. Maybe we can get the
source in case you miss this. You can get something from
her.
LN: Well, after you celebrate your 50th wedding anniversay,
you think it's about time, because we might not be
remembering this a year from now. I am a native, Bill, and
NIXON 2
LN: so is my brother. He's a little bit younger than I am.
We are a professional family. I was a teacher, he is still
a teacher. My maiden name was Enderle. In German, it is
pronounced, En - derl , although there is an "en on the end
of it. But San Antonio phone book is full of Enderles. And
they pronounce it with a final "e."
My father came to Fredericksburg as a surveyor. He was
requested to come as a surveyor by the Gillespie County
judge. He had been teaching for about four years after his
graduation from Tivy High School in Kerrville. He had met
my mother, Louise Forres, on a teaching assignment east of
Austin at Pfluegerville. She was a piano teacher, and she
was staying with Pflueger and Bohls relatives and teaching,
one summer.
She and her father got into the habit of coming and
spending the summer in Kerrville at the old St. Charles
Hotel. My father got to know her better, and eventually he
asked her to marry him, and she said "yes." She was six
years his elder. But back in the early 1900s, age
particularly didn't make any difference.
He studied at the University of Texas and the
University of Colorado during summer sessions. He never was
able to get his degree because the family started coming.
We were three children, and we all graduated from
Fredericksburg High School. He continued teaching science
courses for over 30 years in Fredericksburg. He was
NIXON 3
LN: musically inclined. He could sing. He could play the
piano. My mother and he played duets . She accompainied him
to sing. We were all interested in music.
When it came time for me to go to the university, I
almost decided to go into journalism, and in myoId age, I
wish I had. I'd have had a tool. But about this time in
1937 or 8, the culture clubs, the Women's Culture Clubs of
Texas had brought pressure on the legislature to create the
College of Fine Arts. Dean Doty was the first dean of the
Fine Arts department at the University of Texas and I
majored in drama. But I took 26 hours in English and I had
Frank Dobie and some of the unforgetables like Dr. Ransom.
He taught Shakespeare with a crew cut. In Fredericksburg it
had been taught by dear Miss Julia Estill, the founder of
Delta Kappa Gamma here. And it was an interesting
experience, going from a small town and small high school to
the big University of Texas.
My husband was in the College of Engineering. He had
been to college previously at North Texas State Agricultural
College at Arlington. We were an oddity ... we were the
only married couple amoung 14,000 students who were both
going to college. Most wives were putting their husbands
through college, but I had long been a feminist. I
inherited this trait from my mother. So I worked and went
to school, and he worked and went to school, and we
graduated at the same time, although I had to take 36 hours
the last year.
BURKHARDT 4
LN: I taught for 4 years at Baytown. My husband had a
choice of going into the Navy or being one of two graduates
of the College of Engineering to be hired by what was known
as Humble Oil and Refining Company. We had had four frugal
years, and we wanted a few years of beer in the ice box. So
we elected to go to Baytown and, naturally, his job was a
necessary job and produced deferment from military service.
But we never quite got used to the coast of Texas, and never
got acclimated.
So we retired to Fredericksburg in 1946, because our
first child was about to be born, and we said, "Who ever
heard of anybody being born in Baytown, Texas? Let's go
back to Fredericksburg, the birthplace of Admiral Nimitz."
That was another reason we came home.
PG: What did your father survey? What part of Texas?
LN: He surveyed the entire Hill Country and down toward the
Mexican border, in the Sabinal country. He was the elected
and appointed county surveyor for 63 years. I have the
plaque that was awarded him at one time, and he is the one
who was instrumental in my son going to SuI Ross University.
He was intrigued with Indian lore and Indian artifacts, and
in his surveying experiences, he became quite an expert at
being able to define the different artifacts that he found.
He had a map and would write down what and where he found
them.
My husband and my father hunted wild game a great deal
in West Texas. So when it came time for Vic Jr to enter
NIXON 5
LN: college , he graduated in the late '60s, he decided to
go to Sul Ross. Spent 5 years out there, digging in caves,
and majored in business administration. (laughter) He and
his friends would go across the border too, so we have a
very extensive collection, part of which has been sold from
time to time. It's been a family hobby.
Then our second child, a daughter, was born 5 years
later than Vic, Jr. Her high school graduation was the time
of social unrest. Otherwise Cristol would have gone to UT.
She was a brilliant student, but we just didn't want her
down there with all the protesters and unrest. So she chose
to go to Texas Lutheran College. She met her future husband
there. She was a twirler, and her fiancee was a football
player. She finished in three years. She majored in
psychology and minored in Spanish with a certificate in
social work. Her husband-to-be was majoring in law, by this
time, at St. Mary's University, S.A. She worked for one
year, and helped him complete his Doctor of Law degree.
Then they moved back to Houston. He was from the Houston
area. She enrolled in Bates College of Law at U. of
Houston.
They are both back here now, practicing family law
together. They had two little children, and they just
decided they'd be commuting all the time.
Our third child came to us seven years later, Nina , our
anthropologist. She 's a protege of her grandfather. And
she is doing exactly what you 're doing. She is going
NIXON 6
LN: around, getting old-timers recollections. She writes
the applications for many markers around here, and we're
ready to dedicate the Pinta Trail marker out here on the
Austin Highway. This piece of trail was the main trail that
the general westward migration followed. It extended from
San Antonio to the Menard area where the missions were in
the 1700's.
The Indians would trade in San Antonio and they would
follow this trail. It had never been documented, but while
she was at the University of Texas, ••. victor? Please
come in, and meet the Greggs ... Mr. and Mrs. Gregg, this is
Victor Nixon.
VN: How are you getting along?
LN: This is a retired Navy man.
ditched the Navy.
PG: Can't
I was telling them how you
Well, this is fascinating, too. And that's what we're
hunting for, is the old-timers and what has been found in
the Hill Country.
LN: And my husband had an interesting experience with one
of my father's pet projects. My father witnessed a giant
meteorite fall in the Hill Country in 1917. The 1917
meteorite that fell in the Hill County. He mapped its
directions from other's observations. He, Victor, and my
brother located it in 1936 and asked for assistance from Dr.
Sellards at UT. It was carried off the ranch in a crude
cradle, and is now the largest display at the University of
Texas.
NIXON 7
PG: Oh.
LN: But to get back to the trail ... Nina, in her junior
year, was nominated to Junior Fellows in the College of
Liberal Arts at UT Austin. About 30 students were chosen
each year, if they had a passion for a certain project. So
she decided to go to the Land Office in Austin and to the
Barker Library and document the Pinta trail. She looked in
military journals, and maps old maps ... she would
research county maps. The river crossings had been painted
by Lungkwitz and Petri in the 1850's and '60's and
documented in that manner. She was able to document it,
closely through county field notes.
VN: In light of the old surveys of Spanish grants , the
original surveys.
LN: I'm trying to think of the professor under whom she
worked. It was Dr. William Newcomb, Jr., the authority on
Texas Indians. Well, anyway, we wrote up the marker
application about a year ago, and it was approved, and we're
about ready to dedicate the marker. It's going to be placed
on the Austin Highway.
Now, our immigrants in coming from New Braunfels to
Fredericksburg, followed the trail from the cibolo River.
It's described by Dr. Roemer in his book, "Texas, 1847."
Have you read Dr. Roemer's "Texas?"
PG: No.
LN: Well , he came to Texas and to Fredericksburg in 1847.
He went on the expedition with Muesebach to the Indians.
NIXON 8
L: And he was present at the treaty-making process. He
pointed out that Fredericksburg was northwest of New
Braunfels, but the road did not go northwest. It dropped
down to the Cibolo River in Bexar County, and then it went
on to Waring, and came up due north. It came through what is
now present- day Cain City, right over here, right where you
were •• out on the Austin Road. The Greggs missed our drive.
BG: Just a little bit.
LN: But the trail came through the Cain City pass then.
Indians were sequacious* people. They found the best way to
travel, they followed the buffalo naturally. So our pioneers
followed the same route when they came from New Braunfels ...
they dropped down to the Cibolo River.
PG: Did they lose many people when they moved?
LN: The pioneers?
PG: Yes.
LN: We will never know, because there are no accurate
records kept. When they finally got to Fredericksburg,
privation and diseases that were brought from the coast of
Texas killed quite a few people. Actually, there are
various estimates. Dr. Beasley says around 150. Dr.
Beasley is our Bible. He was at the University of Texas.
And he and students translated a lot of the German
Emigration Company records. He said about 150 died. They
also died because the person that Meusebach had hired as a
doctor, he was known as Dr. Schubert, who was also
* inclined to follow subser vient, tractable
NIXON 9
LN: designated the colony director of the Verein 's Kirche ,
was a quack doctor who had taken a few courses in St. Louis.
His name was actually Struburg , from Germany. The Struburg
family still has many of the Verein's papers, and they were
offered to the university last year, but the university
thinks it has the most complete record o f the Verein's of
any university in America. However, I believe it's Yale
University who has bought some of the St ruburg papers. But
to make the story short, Dr. Struburg mistreated and
misdiagnosed the illness, and that was another reason so
many families died.
But my husband's grandparents on both sides ..• that
would be great-grandparents ... were the very first
immigrants in Fredericksburg. So this is why our daughters
were able to apply for membership in the Daughters of the
Republic membership because they arrived in 1845 and 6
before February ..• what is it? Nineteen
PG: Twentieth •.. ? the cut- off date for being in the
Republic of Texas before it became part of the United
States.
LN: Correct. My husband's family was Catholic. Most of
the immigrants were Protestants. In fact, the 25 noblemen
and one noblewoman who made up the Verein group were all
Protestants. The one Catholic was ••• now I cannot remember
his name •.. but Prince Frederick of Prussia, for whom
Fredericksburg was named, was also Catholic. So when people
corne to the Verein's Kirche .. you've been there the
NIXON 10
LN: replica in the center of town, we tell them that the
Verein had in mind a community building that could be used
for the purpose of education, religion, and town meetings.
But the Catholics didn't stay but several months, and then
they built their own little church. And the next group to
leave was composed of German Lutherans who were converted to
Methodism by a minister who happened to be in
Fredericksburg, and that left two different branches of the
Lutherans. Or not branches, two different groups.
PG: Were there .•. in the group? Do you remember?
LN: No. No. Actually, most of these people came from West
Central Germany, the Provinces of Nassau, Hesse, and
Hanover, Germany. There were some Prussians. Mine were
Alsatians. And of course, it took five years to become
naturalized. So these naturalization papers are very, very
valuable.
PG: Did they get naturalization papers if they already were
here in 1845? They didn ' t need to. They were part of the
Republic of Texas, but did they become United States
citizens .•. ?
LN: This is this is why .. . they applied for the United
States citizenship. It was very important to our
forefathers. Of course, Texas was what lured them here ...
the free land. Only the lord of the manor could hunt in
Germany. All this free land , and all the possibilities of a
better life for their children, are what lured them here.
BG: The question that befuddles me If you're in ...
NIXON 11
BG: you belong to the Republic of Texas ... it becomes part
of the United States ••• then everybody in Texas had to take
up citizenship papers?
PG: To become a U.S. citizen?
LN: Interesting question. I presume anybody from a foreign
country had to acquire immigration papers. Now Victor's
family on his father's side were Tennesseeans and Arkansans,
and they migrated at the same time ... just a few years
later. But they were already Americans.
VN: You know ... you know what they said about my
great-great grandfather?
LN: The Nixons.
VN: I hate to say this , but he settled ... I think they
settled here four or five years after the German
immigrants.
LN: Well, the 1850's.
VN: Yes. They settled out toward what was to become Doss,
Texas.
LN: They settled out with the Indians on the frontier away
from the colony of Fredericksburg.
VN: With the Indians. The joke was that the Nixons were
the first white people ••. (Anglo-Americans). They spoke
English.
LN: That's supposed to be an ethnic joke, I think.
But they learned to speak German, and his grandfather
was a folk doctor. Any time anybody got shot by an Indian,
Grandpa Nixon went down there and extricated that arrow.
NIXON 12
LN: And of course he used home remedies .
VN: But the Indians never did bother the Nixons. They
lived on Squaw Creek near Doss and Lange 's Mill.
PG: What was the feeling between the Indians and the
settlers in Fredericksburg? That worked here and not in
other places?
LN: Well, I tell it this way at the Verein's Kirche ••• I'm
chairman of the Verein's Kirche, so I do my best to answer
as historically correct as I can. The Indians had had
experience with the Mexicanos. They didn't like Mexicanos;
they were constantly raiding them. They had had bad
experience with the Tejanos, and they had bad experience
with Americanos. This was a different tribe. They called
them "aleman" (Spanish for Germans). They were different.
And the Germans had come to stay, and this is what makes a
different situation.
We will not take your hunting grounds. We are going to
establish little farms. And we will trade with you. You
bring us your products, and actually Meusebach made a
revolutionary statement. He said, "Our young people will
get to know each other, and perhaps marry." He was an
aristocrat from Germany. But he was a different aristocrat
from Prince Solms. He was so very well educated. He was
educated in all the sciences. And of course, Chief Santana
had been to Washington. The Army had taken Santana t o
Washington, and he had seen the strength of the great white
father, the president, and he knew ... he knew eventually
NIXON 13
LN: the Indians would have to come to accept an agreement.
But the only trouble we in Gillespie County, here in
the Hill Country, ever encountered was with renegades. But
there was never a planned assault on even New Braunfels.
New Braunfels was saved by the same treaty. There were
Indians all northwest of New Braunfels - the Wacos. The
Fischer-Miller Grant was Indian's country.
BG: Oh, yes. Yes, indeed.
LN: Victor's great- grandparents sold their •.• their ...
what did they call it at that time •.• their grant for
$50 . 00.
PG: When was that Fischer-Miller Grant? Was that in 1846?
Do you remember what date?
LN: Well, there were several grants.
PG: Yes.
LN: The Castro Grant. And he was granted the south lands.
Well, the Austin Grant , the Bourgeoise-Ducos Grant, and the
Castro Grant. And the Fisher- Miller Grant actually had run
out before the colony had been brought in. These Germans
could have come over here free •.. for free But Fisher
and Miller were two shysters and so they inveigled the
legislature into extending their grant. They should have
... I'm trying to think ... they should have settled the
grant ... about 1845. Sometime in 1845.
VN: Another thing about the Fisher-Miller Grant, they went
so far west, you know, into the Indian country.
BG: That's it.
NIXON 14
VN: All the way up to the Concho, Menard, San Saba.
BG : A question came up a while ago while we had the tape
off , deciding where to go from there. About how surveys
were made in Texas. Did the Corps of Engineers have
anything to do with it? Or just what? And about that time ,
Victor , I think you spoke about Texas system surveys. Would
you please continue?
VN: Most of the early Texas surveyors' surveys were all
made in varas , in lengths of the vara, which is
approximately 33 1/3 inches. And usually there was a land
strip issued, and then the surveyors would go out and survey
it. At that time they had vara tapes, and when they went
out, sometimes they didn't have their own chainmen. They
had to usually pick up some rancher, or whoever they were
working for. And , I'd say the work was . . • isn't accurate,
compared with the way we survey today, but it got the job
done. And ••. and then they would set the corners and
usually mark trees , the bearing trees to locate corners.
Most of the early surveys , why they usually just marked two
corners say, two of the north corners, the northwest
corner, the northeast corner of the survey, and then they'd
call for going south, say for a mile or 1900 varas and stake
them out. Well, that means that corner was never set. So
any surveyors that came in afterward would have to locate
that survey ... (the south corners of those surveys never
had been marked) in order to go and do their work if
they were working on the adjoining field.
NIXON 15
BG: Thank you.
LN: You should tell them about marking the trees.
VN: Well, I did. Most of the trees the early surveyors
marked were live oak trees. Live oaks live longer than the
others. And formerly we had a lot of burr oak trees here,
which we don't have anymore. Very few burr oaks. And they
used burr oak trees to mark. And, also, mesquites and post
oaks. Post oaks didn't live too long. But fortunately
with post oaks, if you had the call distance .•. (going out
your distance from the corner the direction called for)
you could dig in the ground and usually find a stump, which
would locate the corner.
And most of our surveys, they surveyed regular
sections, well, everything was designated in sections.
sometimes they'd come in and they'd survey some '" say 4,
5, 6 sections here on one side. And then the other side,
say 2 or 3 miles away, they'd survey another few sections,
and then the land in between, a lot of times it would be
what's called scrap survey. In other words, it would go all
different directions ... just to fill up what had been
vacant.
BG: Do you recall any particular reason the burr oaks
seemed to have died out or whatever happened to them?
VN: Well,
BG: • .. for I umber?
VN: Well, I don't know. There still are a lot of burr oaks
in Real County. And the western part of Kerr County.
NIXON 16
VN: The burr oak can have a real large acorn. It's an
enormous acorn. But we have very few burr oaks here now in
Gillespie County.
BG: Thank you. It's in your court now.
PG: Do you remember your grandparents saying anything about
how hard it was to farm?
LN: Every time they planted something, the animals would
eat it. The deer and racoons.
PG: What did they farm?
LN: Wel l, they farmed the necessities of life •. corn and
cotton. Now, Victor's grandparents had 100 acres of cotton
r ight in this area, between here and town. The little house
right across from Westen Auto when you cross the creek going
back into town. That was their original house. The Jacob
Weinheimer homestead, and from them, all Weinheimers in our
area are descended.
The other part of his family ... the Stehling family
two brothers came to Texas by themselves. From these
two brothers, all the Stehlings in our area are descended.
The hardships I would say were those of my paternal
grandparents. First, I'll say, my maternal grandparents
were professional people. My grandfather, Henry Forres, was
the president of the German Methodist College here. And he
was here for a number of years. He had a large family. but
his wife died early, and he pursued other activities. He
owned a book store in San Antonio. My mother would ride
horseback allover the west end of San Antonio. They lived
NIXON 17
LN: On Cincinnati Street. And she had a very pleasant
youth. Her older sister went to Mary Hardin Baylor, but she
herself never went. She always had private tutors, and?
But as far as hardships, those that I remember were of
my paternal grandparents. My grandfather was born in San
Antonio in 1854. Albert Enderle was his name. And he was
one of two of 12 children born in Texas. The Michael
Enderle fami ly came with all their children, with the
exception o f these two. They lost one at sea. They bought
land in San Antonio near Hot Wells. But as a young man,
since my grandfather was the youngest, his oldest sister ,
Mrs. Charles Schreiner, took him under her wing, and he
began to work for Charles Schreiner at a very early age.
One of his interesting jobs and a very dangerous job, I
would say, was the fact that Captain Schreiner would send
him with several Mexicans out to homestead in the western
part of the county and on over into Kimble County. In fact,
the signature on one instrument we have is from McCullough
County, all the way up to Brady.
VN: And Edwards County.
LN: And Edwards County . And he would homestead there for
as long as it look to lay c laim to the land, come back to
Kerrville and get sent off somewhere else. And this is how
Capt. Schre ine r was able to acquire such a vast acreage. He
had a lot of good help. We used to ask my grandmother •..
she was a Dietert. My grandfather ••. my great grandfather ,
Christian Dietert, was a miller . He built many mills.
NIXON
LN: Capt. Schreiner eventually bought his mill in
Kerrville. But the Dieterts were mill wrights, and they
18
built mills he and his brother, Frederick, built mills
in Comfort, and Boerne, and Fredericksburg. And of course,
Kerrville. But we always said, "Grandma, did you ever see
an Indian?" And she said, "No." But lots of times my daddy
would sneak up on my mother and me out in the orchard and
holler like an Indian and scare us into the house.
Kerrville was their home which became a very sociable
place. Theirs was the fifth or sixth log cabin .•. the
Christian Dietert log cabin was the fifth or sixth. The
site had already been settled by Anglo- Americans.
VN: They were shingle makers.
LN : Yes, shingle makers on the Guadalupe River. But the
Dieterts brought with them a lot of the culture of Europe .
They were Lutherans.
Lutheran. She ..• as
Grossmamma (grandmother) was a
a young bride taught the young people
to waltz. She had parties at their house and she became
very, very, well, you might say experimental in recipes.
Some of her recipes to this day are still used. We have one
in particular .. , a cooky, a Christmas cooky. And if that
cooky isn't made just right , it isn't edible.
Now the first Christmas tree came to Kerrville to the
Dietert's house. So they did a whole lot to civilize what
was up to that point just a shingle-making community.
Great-g randfather Christian Dietert was on the first school
board and was one of the first postmasters of Kerrville.
NIXON 19
LN: Several sons went to college. Most of the sons ranched
and the daughters married merchants or civil servants.
Sometimes the Germans from here did move on south, but
most of them moved westerly. They settled Mason . They were
very instrumental in settling San Angelo, because they had
all the skills it took for building. They were builders.
VN: In other words, a lot of Germans had helped to build
Kerrville and Comfort. Stonemasons in particular.
VN: And freight. They did most all the trading.
LN: On both of our sides, during the Confederacy, our
grandparents freighted. To Mexico, taking necessary
supplies.
VN: Except my great-gandfather.
LN: Oh, your grandfather, Andrew Jackson Nixon II.
VN: Yeah.
LN: His grandfather was a Texas Ranger. So he joined the
Confederacy and attained rank of 2nd Corporal under Col.
J.E. McCord, TST. I had an uncle who was a Texas Ranger,
Louis Enderle, but he worked mainly for Capt Schreiner. So
he worked the trails. He was a well-known trail driver. He
took cattle up to Kansas.
PG: It was a l ot of commerce with Mexico.
LN: Definitely.
PG: Both with ships and with ?
BG: Ships would be easier.
LN: Wel l, it was the Eu r opean background, you know. All
progress that had been made was actually made by Europeans
NIXON 20
LN: who went to Mexico. The French and .•. as well as the
Spanish. Santa Anna's army was trained by the European
soldiers. So it ••• it was an interesting civilization. I
have always admired Stephen F. Austin for making that long
trip to Mexico City. I've been there once on a plane. It
was beautifully European but desolately Indian.
I cannot imagine how they found their way to Mexico
City. But there was a lot of commerce.
BG: You do what you have to do. An amazing amount of
commerce has existed since there were more than two or three
people a r ound.
LN: Our post office origins and designations p r ovide
interesting anecdotes. Our small communities ••• our county
post offices. In the Verein's Kirche Archive we have one
wall that designates all the little towns which were
considered towns because they had post offices. Most of
them were west of Fredericksburg. One of the cutest stories
I've heard ••• and I'm sure it's repeated many times in
Texas .•. was the fact that when they ... a rider would come
in with the mail, he would just throw it down, and everybody
went through the mail just to see if there was a letter for
himself, you know. And this was particularly true of willow
City. It eventually became a post office. Willow City was
definitely an Anglo-Saxon community. It was a notorious,
brawling community.
Now there were Germans just 10 miles ..• what would you
say, east of it at Cave Creek , Victor?
NIXON 21
VN: Yes.
LN: Cave Creek was German. But willow City was definitely
a country settled by the Tennesseans arriving after the
Civil War. The Rileys were big ranchers. The Bowies owned
a lot of ranch land. When the Texas Public Education
legislation was enacted in 1854 immediately people would
offer one acre of land for a school house to be built. And
in that area, we are told, there was an argument between old
man Riley and old man Schmidt as to who was going to get to
give that acre of land. They had a footrace and the person
who won the footrace had the privilege of giving one acre of
land. And that's a true story.
BG: How far west of here did the Pinta trail extend?
LN: Mason? Sur veys contain references to this designation.
The mission at Menard is referred to in other sources that
were of earlier origin.
Well, down at Pedernales River crossing, the trail came
on straight through Fr edericksburg, and when they laid out
Fredericksburg, don't you think, Victor, they just followed
that straight line?
VN: Well, it's possible.
LN: possible. Going to Mason. To the next river. The
other part of the trail went to Enchanted Rock, northeast.
VN: Ther e was one trail northwestward out there at
Enchanted Rock. That joined the other trail before it got
to the Llano River. Then it went on to Mason, and on up to
Menard.
NIXON 22
LN: That's right . But the field notes between Gillespie
County and San Antonio describe completely this particular
section of the trail. The Old San Antonio Road and the
Fredericksburg Northern Railroad follow the trail exactly as
the Indians traveled in the 18th century.
Nina 1 s study is the first attempt some person has put
it together. The Texas State Historical Association asked
for Nina's presentation at the annual meeting in 1981.
VN: We had one section right down here on the river that
has a survey call described accurately by Col. Jack Hayes.
LN: Right down on the river. I've always told Victor.
Please go to the Courthouse and pinpoint that.
VN: Well, I've pinpointed it.
LN: Oh, you did?
VN: We got all those records.
LN: That's good. Captain Hayes, of course, was very well
known as a surveyor, you know ... first of all as a surveyor
and then as a Texas Ranger. I think he is he has
probably been given his due in history books, but perhaps he
hasn't. It may be due to the fact that he left and went to
California and made his fortune there. But really and
truly, he organized the Texas Rangers. And he surveyed all
of this part of Texas. Prior to ••. well, you would say,
statehood. Those were the days of the Republic.
PG: How did they take care of their animals, up this far?
Did they have barns to bring them into in the wintertime?
Did they lose many animals, with the weather? You don't
NIXON 23
PG: have that much difference in temperature from San
Antonio, do you?
LN: Well, you might look at the painting of Lungkwitz - I
think we have it in .,. we have a little print of it in the
Verein's Kirche. They built little out-buildings. they
really did. Of course, everything was made of logs. And
building anything of logs was quite convenient.
The reason, of course, there is so much left in our
area, is because, as soon as people were able to afford it,
they built something more substantial . The rock was
available ••• they looked around and discovered that .•. and
that was one of the reasons Muesebach selected this area.
There was a lot of water , lots of timber, and a lot of good
building rock.
I'm thinking 1854 is the date for the old Kiehne
two-story house down here which is now a Bed and Breakfast.
But that was the first two-story house built in our area.
To me, it reminds one more of what is seen in Europe than
anywhere else ••• other than the Tatsch house which has no
front por ch on it. The front porch was an Anglo- Saxon
adaptation. They adapted to the climate. They had to have
it.
PG: Yep.
BG: Which house is that you mentioned? We want to look at
it, of course.
LN: The Kiehne House. Now a Bed and Breakfast. Right
cater-cornered from the Nimitz. It's beautiful. It's
NIXON 24
LN: two-story. But that was built in 1854, and it's still
standing. It was so well-built.
PG: They knew how to work with wood.
LN: But you must also look at the Tatsch House. That is
over near the water tower. So that would be .•. what
street, Victor? What runs N.W. and S.E.?
VN: Austin?
LN: No. You will take Main Street and go north up to the
water tower, and make a right hand turn, and it's two blocks
further. But that is the outstanding European example.
John Peter Tatsch, not only built his own house and his own
furniture, he built furniture for all his children. As they
married, he built their furniture for them. We have one
exquisite piece in Pioneer Museum. You must go see it.
It's in the Muesebach Room. In the Texas furniture book
written by Taylor, he has a few examples of the Johann Peter
Tatsch type of furniture that was made ..•
Lonn Taylor told me when he was photographing a lot of
the furniture and other items at the Pioneer Museum, at one
time in early Fredericksburg, wherever you sit on Main
Street, if you throw a rock, you would hit a furniture
maker. People had to have cabinets when they arrived. They
had to have the necessities they had known.
We sometimes think that the immig rants who came in were
penniless, were illiterate, and so on. Practically
everybody had an education up to the 4th or 5th grade level.
Many brought their pianos with them. And I cannot see how
NIXON 25
LN: they did it, but they did . They brought their violins
with them . And they were music loving people . Music, of
course, was like tobacco ... it eased their woes, you know.
PG: And they had to have people who were tuners to tune the
pianos, to tune the violins.
LN: Well, I can't say f or sure that they were in tune, but
they were enjoyed. They certainly managed to make use of
them. And that is just part of the German character ••. the
love of music.
BG: One of the things we have heard as docents at the
Institute, is that so many of the people who came to
Fredericksburg were these doctors, and so forth, and so
forth, and were not used to the hard labor that they
encountered when they came here and had to do their own
stuff. Is this correct interpretation? Are we hearing
things down there?
PG: That they were not farmers .••
LN: Oh, no. Not in Fredericksburg. Those people were
farme r s and they learned to farm better out of necessity.
They planted corn instead of wheat.
BG: Oh, of course.
LN: People who were the intelligentsia, you might say , who
thought you could sit under a pecan tree all day and dream,
were the people who settled to the east of us, at
Sisterdale.
END OF TAPE I, SIDE 1, 45 MINUTES.
NIXON 26
TAPE I, SIDE 2
PG: I'm not somebody who likes to go out and wander around
rattlesnakes and look for things too, how did you keep
horses from getting killed when you went out ridi ng?
VN: Well, the horses, they had a sense of smell ... they've
always they can smell a rattlesnake or anything like
that
PG: Yeah.
VN: But they had NOISE)
LN: Getting back to your reference of the professiona l type
person, there were people of various occupations who came
and certainly the reason they came was because the
Industrial Revolution had come so late to Germany and
whatever type of little factory they had in their own home
was wiped out by the Industrial Revolution. Well, we had,
let's name some o f the vocations. We had wheelwrights,
millwrights, ...
VN: Rlacksmiths,
LN: Coopers, •.•
BG: Furniture makers ,
LN: Yes. That's right. Stonemasons. I'm trying to think
of the families that set up the stores .•. I'm sure they
must have had some sort of training back in Germany to be
able to do that. And , of course, many teachers had come.
And they were able to eke out livings. But, of course, the
farming was all ... what is the expression ..• you farm for
yourself to keep yourself alive?
NIXON 27
BF : subsistence?
LN: Yes. Subsistence farming , with planning from the
Emigration Company. Fredericksburg was laid out with "in
town" lots and 10 acre " out" lots. People built in town and
farmed out of town.
VN: They gave them the 10 acre out l ots to farm.
BG: Speaking of out ••. it probably was in long before your
time, but I was wondering when they stopped having to go out
and had plumbing inside?
LN: That hasn't been too long ago.
BG: My mother remembers it.
LN : Well, you must think our house looks like an antique
shop. Victor just inherited this piece of furniture that
was covered with enamel. His grandfather made it himself,
and we want you to l ook at the back of it after awhile .•.
at the size of the tree that was used. It's all beautifully
beveled they had the correct tools for it. And the
drawers just glide beautifully, and it's dove-tailed.
VN: That was my great-grandfather.
LN: Yes , pardon me •.• your great- grandfather Stehling. We
just recently got hold of this, several weeks ago , and we
worked at it steadily. Removing enamel is strenuous , and
right now we're tired. We had to take off several coats of
enamel. It was beautifully done . It had been amalgamized.
And we had to take off the •• • the beautiful ... yes, knobs
that were on it because they were not in character with this
primitive piece. But it's the one primitive piece that we
NIXON 28
LN: own that belonged to our family. So we have to finish
it. We haven't completed it. Victor just got down to the
original finish.
BG: Don't offer it to us ••. it won't fit in the station
wagon.
LN: No.
VN: Bill, you were speaking of doctors a few moments ago.
LN: Oh, yes. Dr. Christian Althaus. Came from the same
city as Muesebach. And he was a doctor with the army in
Germany. So he emigrated. He had two of his family with
him when he came. His wife came with him. But he was an
army doctor, so he had to redesign his education when he got
here. He was no longer in the army. So he became a
plantologist; he discovered herbal cur es. We have his
instruments in Pioneer Memorial Museum. You must go look at
them. Although crudely made, they were very delicate
instruments for that time. The doctor was sent to Bandera
during a cholera e p idemic. He cured all but two of thirty
cases. When he died in his nineties, he was the oldest
living practicing doctor in Texas in 1915. The pioneers
used their heads as well as their hands.
LN: Yes. That's r ight. The other doctor who came is the
doctor for whom we are naming our Daughters of the Republic
chapter here ... Dr. William Keidel. He came as an
unmarried young man, and he went and fought in the Mexican
wa r on the bor der.
Coming into Fredericksburg as a colonist, he was
NIXON 29
LN: elected our first chief justice. But he did not live
in town. He decided to take a group of people who would
follow him ... he would treat them free of charge •.• and he
went out into the Pedernales area, toward Kerrville, south
of Fredericksburg. He treated the Indians. And they would
repay him. Wake up in the morning, and there would be a
freshly slain deer hanging in his tree. And, of course, he
established the Keidel dynasty here. There have been four
generations of doctors here. We're into the fifth now. Dr.
Werner Ned Keidel is in San Antonio. So this is why we're
naming our chapter after him. When our men organize, we
intend, we hope, to name it the Meusebach Chapter.
We have had the opportunity to know the
Marshall-Meusebach family, my husband and I, for twenty
years. Very wonderful people. They, of course, were
aristocrats. The Marshalls were Von Marshalls; the
Muesebachs were Von Muesebachs. But they dropped the Von
when they came to Texas. And that is the outstanding
characteristic of John Muesebach. While Prince
Solms-Braunfels rema ined the aristocrat the rest of his
life, after he went back to Germany ... our Meusebach was
just a free person, you see, enjoying the freedom of a new
land.
PG: Why did Prince Solms go back to Germany?
LN: Well, his sweetheart would not come to Texas. And he
had a predicament on his hands. The German Emigration
Company had not envisioned how grea t the expense would be,
to try to locate three million immigrants in Texas. So the
NIXON
LN: book-keeping was very lax. You can imagine the
difficulty with slow communications.
VN: Did you say three million? You meant five ... ?
LN: Five million.
VN: Did they expect that many? I didn't know they had
30
LN: Oh, yes. They certainly did. They came. Through the
emigration period it goes into the tens ••• ten ••• did I
say five million?
VN: Yes.
LN: Pardon me. It was three thousand immigrants. It's
approximately five million acres in the grant.
BG: There's a million in there.
LN: I'm not off very far, am I? This is what happened when
our grant was opened up. It was quickly populated. It
didn't take long.
PG: Did they land at Port Lavaca, and come up through
Indianola?
LN: They landed at Galveston, and then were transferred to
Indianola, which the Germans had established because it was
on the direct line to Fredericksburg and New Braunfels.
Galveston was a little too far away. As it was, this port,
too, was too fa r away from LaGrange.
It was Prince Solms who devised the idea of way
stations all the way through to the grant. And that ' s why
New Braunfels and Fredericksburg were established. Castell
as soon as the treaty was made with the Indians, Castell
was the next stopping place. Castell is located on the
south of the Llano, isn't it?
NIXON 31
VN: Yes.
LN: It isn't quite in the grant. Cross the Llano River and
you're in the grant. But Castell was the last in the
plan for a townsite. It was named for one of the Verein
members. Another small one by the name of Art. And that
became the haven for the German Methodists.
And Dr. Terry Jordan at the University of Texas and his
father at SMU have written beautiful books. And Dr. Terry
Jordan r ight now is Professor of Geology at the University
of Texas, Austin. He's Professor of Geology. And he has
made intensive studies of the agriculture of this region
through a period of one generation. And all of his writings
are very interesting. He has •.. there is one of your
Institute's publications entitled our daughter gave it
to her daddy ..• and I have now given it back to her
daughter. But it is essays by different writers, and Dr.
Terry Jordan writes about the Easter fires.
well now, the Easter fires are a transplanted
tradition. Germans habitually had Easter fires at Easter in
Germany. From the old Roman custom of burning up the old so
the new could emerge. Pushing your sins to the back, looking
forward to a new beginning. And as a child, I grew up here,
we had never heard of the peace treaty, but there was always
an Easter egg in our yard. We made our Easter nests with
our brothers and sisters Saturday evening. Every Easter
morning, there was an Easter bunny in our yard. It was the
most marvelous heritage for a child . We really and
NIXON 32
LN: truly welcomed the Easter rabbit in the spring time.
When the story became a pageant, we had had two very
distinguished people at the University of Texas, Miss Julia
Estill, ••• to whom I referred before, and Miss Esther
Mueller who studied under J. Frank Dobie. She learned to
write folklore. So she entitled one of her little essays,
"The Legend of the wild Flowers in Texas." That became the
origin of our Easter fire pageant here. Mr. Phil Petmecky
was a local correspondent for the San Antonio Express, and
he put together this little fairy tale. And, of course, he
wrote it in the fashion that Miss Mueller used with her
little pageants in the first and second and thi r d grades
here.
She was my fi rs t grade teacher. I dearly loved her. I
was a teacher's daughter, and I had to wait until he was
ready to go home, so I would help her clean her room. I
spent many hours with Esther Mueller. But Mr. Petmecky took
her little fantasy that he had written her little fable
and he interwove it with fiction and some history.
Dr. Terry Jordan points out that in the pageant the
treaty took place on March 2, and then the Indians returned
in April, a month later, and signed it in Fredericksburg .
Well, it just so happens, if you will look at the
calendar, Easter did not occur March 2 in 1846. There is a
lot, you know, of the pageant which is just fact and fiction
interchanged. It's not a historical pageant like TEXAS, for
example, or the one down at Galveston and the one in East
NIXON 33
LN: Texas and so on. You can go see it once and enjoy it,
but there's no depth to it. But it's a community endeavor
and it's not supposed to be, you might say, a legitimate
drama of any type. I worked with it two years, but I saw
that it was impossible to really present a legitimate
theatrical production. So I went with organizing the
community theater here in town.
I directed •. , the 1971 pageant which celebrates our
125th anniversay. I took one of Miss Meuller's early
scripts, and I rewrote it and extended it considerably.
Hers concentrated on the ... colonization only. But I went
on and extended it on up to our two greats ..• three greats
... Meusebach, Admiral Nimitz, and, of course, the
President, Lyndon Johnson. It was a fun thing to do, but I
don't want to ever do it again. I had nightmares of feathers
and horses. Indian feathers and horses, six weeks prior to
it. I don't know how Victor could put up with me, but it
was a wonderful experience.
At that historical time for me and for Dr. Cornelia
Marshall Smith, who is the Meusebach-Marshall grand-daughter
at Baylor University, and for whom there is a biology chair
named. She wanted it video taped at that time, and I
thought, "Oh, we're such amateurs, that's just a waste of
money." How I wish now I had said, "Go right ahead; spend
$2,000." Because it would be wonderful archival material,
and you, too, would have it down in your archives.
BG: Victor, any idea when the Masonic Lodge was established
NIXON 34
BG: here or any of the other fraternal orders , for that
matter.
VN: I ... I really wouldn't know, myself.
LN: Woodmen of the World was a big thing here.
PG: Because of the wood?
BG: No. Because that was the fad at one time.
LN: It was a fad at one time. We have a lot of their
paraphernalia. We have all thei r records; crested banners,
etc. We have their beautiful emblems in the Verein 's
Kirche. The Woodmen of the World at that time, say the
'20s, was very much in vogue. Now it's a dead thing. The
Masons are quite strong now. They really are. Of course,
there were all sorts of organizations. There were granges,
you see , the farmers would organize.
BG: Oh , yes.
LN: And, of course , our shooting clubs and our singing
clubs. They were organized. Would you like to hear the
story of how we discovered Capt. Gillespie 's grave?
BG: Why, certainly.
LN: Well , my daughter, Nina , was a Junior Historian in
Fredericksbug High School, Chapter 21. She was trying to
pick out a topic. We have an essay contest on Founders'
Day, and everybody had written of Meusebach.
(NOISE)
LN: So she decided she would use Gillespie as her subject.
All we knew was Capt. Gillespie fell in the Battle of
Monterrey, and Gillespie County was named for him.
NIXON 35
LN: So we went down to the Texas State Archives, and we
looked at every thing they had. We looked at Lott's History
of Fayette County, where the Texas Rangers were actually
organized. We got what material we could have from the
Daughters of the Republic of Texas. And here we found one
thing that was strange to us. There was a beautiful , you
might say, what would you call it ••• just a beautiful
salute, and it had to be a Mason internment ritual.
So history has it that he was buried at Monterrey where
he fell, along with Sam Walker. But then we read in some of
the microfilmed Texas papers •.• I'm trying to think which
one it was ••. that his bones were re-interred in Texas.
Then we got the feeling that they had to be r e-interred in
San Antonio.
So we had these relatives of ours , the John Cotters of
San Antonio, who are retired people , and who have been to
Germany 26 times. They have presented us a book with the
pictures of all the members in the German Verein. Pictures
of their castles. They have visted the Cathedrals often,
tracing the origin of the Emigration Company. Now they no
longer go to the churches, because all the church records
are placed in centr al locations in Germany since World War
II.
But we told them Capt. Gillespie is bound to be buried
somewhere in San Antonio. He must have been a Mason ,
because al l the early Texas Rangers were Masons. So they
went through all the city cemeteries in San Antonio; could
NIXON 36
LN: not find his grave.
They stumbled on the Odd Fellows Cemetery, near Joskes'
over on Durango Street. And Doris CottIer calls out, "Come,
Look! I have found it!" And the re , right east of the
freeway is an Odd Fellows Cemetery. The Masons had sold
thei r cemetery to the Odd Fellows, and here are Capt.
Gillespie and Sam Walker interred.
Now, the cemetery doesn't look like it looked ten years
ago, when they found this, but Nina wrote this biography
prior to the discovery of the grave. And the week she
mailed it in to the contest, the Cottlers found the grave.
Beautiful limestone gravestone with Sam Walker's name on two
sides, and Capt. Gillespie's name on the other two, the
gravestone was surrounded by cannon with balls on top of
them. But they're limestone. And ••. they had endured
until just recently. Doris Cotter tells us now it doesn't
look like it looked ten years ago. Thankfully, we all took
pictures at that time.
BG: Vandalized?
LN: And I need to get that information to the Institute,
and I need to get it to the Daughters of the Republic of
Texas.
BG: Yes, indeed.
LN: I will try to make a copy of the picture for you. I
can just run it up to the Library and r un it off there for
you. But just recently, this year, a Miss Dorothy Gillespie
NIXON 37
LN: of Tennessee has written us to find out if there was a
personal reason why Gi llespie County was named after her
ancestor. We had to explain to her that there was no
personal reason. As these counties were created, the Texas
Legislature chose the name themselves.
Our convention here had asked that it be named
Germania, then they struck through it and asked that it be
named Pedernales, but it was named Gillespie, after Capt.
Gillespie. But ... we answered Miss Gillepie telling her
what we knew, and she wrote back and told us that we
were wrong in the Handbook of Texas. He was not born in
Kentucky, like Mr. Lotto says in his History of LaGrange and
Fayette County. To verify the correction, she sends us the
family history. And the family historian was a very well
educated clergyman. It's the Houston-Gillespie family.
And I have the material to give to Jack Maguire now.
Nina said she really did not have time ... she has written
several articles for the new addition to the handbook •..
but she does not have time to try to correct this error. So
Jack is going to t ry to correct the error, because Miss
Gillespie has sent me a will that states that Robert Addison
Gillespie was such an age and he was to get this from his
father's estate, and so on and so forth.
But his uncle had bought land in Fayette County, and
these two young men ••. two brothers ..• came to Fayette
County. They were to become merchants. Well, the soon-to­be-
captain had a little store and a little saloon for
awhile. His brother died unexpectedly. He was there about
NIXON 38
LN: 4 or 5 years, and he joined the Texas Rangers. The
next thing he knew, Texas was at war with Mexico. Gillespie
went down to Monterrey. He led the charge on Monterrey .•.
probably the first person killed ..• so he was a great hero
for Texas. We're proud of our namesake.
PG: That's interesting.
LN: So Jack is going to try to get it corrected. The
handbook reads that he was a Kentuckian. He was not ... he
was a Tennesseean.
PG: quite a few interesting things •..
VN: How about the date of his birth. Do you have questions
about that?
LN: Well, now we know exactly when he was born. We have
that exactly. The lady had spent 30 years doing genealogy.
PG: It's amazing how much is still preserved - that wasn't
caught in - like Galveston was destroyed ••• all the fires
that burned records, too. That there are as many records as
there are.
LN: There's so much yet that we can learn, if we will only
take the time to do it. But you have to become 40 years old
before you are really interested in history to the extent
that you make the sacrifice.
PG : And time.
VN: You know, our first county records were kept in a
saloon in Fredericksburg. And one of the soldiers from Fort
Martin Scott created a drunken brawl. The owner, Mr.
Hunter, ran them off. The soldiers came back and burned
NIXON 39
VN: the saloon, and that's why we don't have the first two
years of county records .
LN: Fort Martin Scott has its good points and its bad
points.
VN: It never was very helpful actually for Fredericksburg.
The only thing .•. from all the records and everything
offically important from old timers and writings by
officials ••. there's more handicap than anything else
because it seems like they had to put up with the drunkards
and everything else negative. And they had so many fights
and
BG: Why else did they go to town?
LN: The one thing positive is, they made the settlers feel
safer from the Indians. But it was actually •.. within fo ur
years it was abandoned as the forts moved westward. Fort
Mason was the next one in line. Martin Scott was
reactivated during the Civil War, and the Confederates used
it sporadically.
The Civil War in Gillespie County is an inte resting
era. It really was. These Germans had left Europe to get
away from wars. And no one one really understands wars
anyway ... why they're fought. So you can understand the
colonists point of view. They were not slave holders. Yet
they felt that there should be a convention, like Sam
Houston felt , and let the states resolve their differences,
rather than the union imposing their wishes on them.
We had men who fought on both sides. We really did.
NIXON 40
LN: To my chagrin, when I was president of our Historical
Society, in '75-'76, a lady wanted to get rid of her union
ancestor's firearms. So the newspaper and several of us
drove down to her ranch. We had our picture taken, with a
sabre, a rifle and a pistol.
About four years ago a strange looking lady came to our
museum, in the middle of winter, on a week-end when we were
open. She had on a fur coat and boots, which at that time
was not the usual dress for people in our little community.
She had a $100.00 bill with her. Our docent said, "We don't
have the change. I'm sorry. But you just go on through
anyway." The next day, our backdoor had been broken into,
although we had bars on the windows. And those three
artifacts were missing. Terrorism was just beginning. Any
gun was of value, so our local police surmised that these
were people who were shipping those guns out, and they were
already in Mexico.
But I must tell you about the lady's ancestor, this
young recruit of the Civil War. He went to California and
caught a boat down to Panama, and walked across the Isthmus
of Panama, and took a boat to New York to join with the
Union forces. That's how ardent he was.
BG: He would have gotten there faster by just walking in
the first place.
LN: We used to have a Grand Old Army reunion in Gillespie
County. There were men who fought on both sides.
VN: When my grandfather fought in the Civil War and left
NIXON 41
VN: Doss, which is 20 miles or so northwest of
Fredericksburg, to join the army, all the families had to
come in. There wasn't any protection way out there. And
most of the men joined the home guard.
LN: That's what most men joined. But lawlessness kept them
very busy. And it was the women and children and the old
men who kept agriculture going. It was a trying time.
There was not enought to eat. And our county is respected
for the fact that the county fathers took it upon themselves
to make sure that the needy people were fed.
PG: We need to do that now.
LN: We really do. Absolutely. Neighbors helped neighbors.
PG: I wish we'd go back to that.
LN: And then, of course, we had the outlaws to deal with
all able-bodied men were gone or hiding •.• you know,
out in the wilderness. And the outlaws committed many
atrocities. They really did.
My own great-grandfather, Christian Dietert, was taken
into custody by Col. Duff. If you've ever lived in San
Antonio, you know who Col. Duff was. Oh, he was the captain
of the Partisan Rangers. And as soon as Texas seceded, it
was assumed that the Germans were different anyway, and they
were naturally northern sympathizers. Which was not true.
I mean ..• not as a block were we northern sympathizers. So
Col. Duff would round up people, and then he would execute
them. He would tear fathers away from poor little families,
NIXON 42
LN: and the renegades with him, in the Confederate Army,
would destroy these victims ••. hang them.
But Duff captur ed my great-grandfather Dietert down at
Comfort. He was down there building mills at that time.
And my grandmother had no sleep that terrifying night. She
had heard the soldiers loosely talking about Lipan springs
near Fredericksburg. She was a miller's wife, and she knew
every river in the Hill Country, because they had had many
mills washed away. No mill ever lasted more than 2 years in
the Hill Country. So she rode up ••• what is the creek?
Cypress Creek out of Comfort, with her little son.
She set out to find her husband. And she got up into
the Wolf Creek and Bear Creek area, which is between here
and Kerrville. Then she found her way to the Pedernales.
Sure enough, at this Camp Lipan, which had been a favorite
camping ground about six miles out of Fredericksburg for the
Indians, here was Col. Duff and his men encamped with their
prisoners.
She, Rosalie Hess, came as an orphan to Texas. She
left a brother in Europe, and she came with f r iends. She
emigrated at 19 years of age, weighing 100 pounds. She went
to Comfort from New Braunfels to live with a Wiedenfeller
family. The first things she learned to do were to speak
English and to ride a horse. Not Indian fashion, but
European fashion. So she was at home on a horse. She went
up to Col. Duff, and she pleaded for her husband's life.
She said, "You have the wrong man. My husband is a miller.
NIXON 43
LN: He can be of help to you." She remembered the armies
of Europe, they thrived on the countryside. "But my husband
can give you bags of wheat and corn. Let him go. He is too
valuable to be a prisoner." So Christian Dietert was
released.
The rest of the men were taken on up to Harper. No,
pardon me, Mason. And there were more captives there. They
housed those captives and they would take them out
occasionally and kill them. They were trying to make
examples of them. Trying to make sure there were no new
northern sympathizers. This is another interesting factor
in the trials of a woman on the frontier. But it does show,
as my son wrote this up in the publication of Junior
Historians, that the military men, too, still deep down has
sympathy, too. They're doing the job that they're supposed
to do.
That's our own private little history story.
PG: Very interesting .
BG: I think every family has that little private history
story.
PG: What is the population ••• 6,000 now in
Fredericksburg?
LN: I think it's nearly 7.
PG: I saw what looked like a new marker
LN: Well, it would be greater 1990.
PG: Oh, was it 1980?
LN: Every ten years. But last week's paper said Gillespie
NIXON 44
LN: County is now 15,000. It used to be 12,000. There are
a lot of people who live outside of Fredericksburg.
VN: Right on the outskits of town.
LN: There are many subdivisions.
VN: Actually, our town would be a lot larger, but families
are looking for larger plats on which to build. We've got
just worlds of 5 and 10 acres subdivisions and homes. Just
adjacent to the city limits.
BG: This old navy man doesn't know that most people want a
little piece of land somewhere.
PG: Well, when did the Sunday House come about? When the
Germans came here and they ?
LN: No, just prior to the advent of the Model T car. You
see, the people lived on the outskirts ..• well, 1880's was
about the beginning. But they would worship in
Fredericksburg. We have a city of beautiful beautiful
churches. You must drive up and down the streets and see
how many churches we have.
So the little one-room house was built with a loft
overhead, and only the bare essentials were brought in on
Saturday afternoons. They could do their trading, go to
church in the morning, see their relatives in the afternoon,
and then go back before nightfall. This was all in
horsedrawn vehicles.
With the advent of the Model T, the Sunday houses
phased out. We own the only original, unlived-in Sunday
house on our museum grounds, in the complex. You may see it.
NIXON 45
LN: Drive south on Milam Street, right off of Main Street.
It is now painted grey, it's original color.
We had a dreadful hail storm here in 1946. And all of
our homes were shorn of thei r windows and paint jobs. When
we were offered this house, the people had painted it white.
Repainted it white, to make it look nice and presentable
again. Now we have gone back to its original color, grey,
and it's outstanding. You'll see it on the side street
there. The entrance to the complex is the 300 block of West
Main, the Weber Sunday House in the compound. And it has
the original furnishing in it. Just a kitchen table, a few
chairs, and a long bench.
The children always sat on a bench. You could get so
many more children on a bench, than in a chair. And a cot
for the woman of the house to sleep in. The children and
possibly the father slept upstairs in the loft. Sometimes
there was a stairway; more often there was not. Just a
ladder for the loft. But it is unique to Frederi cksburg.
It's because these peoples' r eligions were so
structured that the family had to worship togeher. You
know, in this day and time, many of us prefer to .•• worship
privately. But they were so structured, and it meant so
much to them. And it also was a part of thei r recreation,
to be able to come to Fredericksburg. But the rites of the
Lutheran and the Catholic Church are very similar. You
begin with baptism .•• well, first marriage . , then baptism,
confirmation, marriage and death.
NIXON 46
BG: They should be very similar. Martin Luther didn't want
to break away. He just wanted a couple of little changes
here and there, and first thing you know, he had to tear
loose .
LN: That's true. He cared more for the common man than
anybody else up to that point. The people learned to read.
And they were allowed to sing. New hymns.
PG: Almost heresy.
LN: Right.
BG: Well, you've certainly given us a wealth of material.
And, like I say, we're not going to stay all afternoon.
We've just about run out of the other side of this tape. So
why don't we go ahead unless you have some startling thought
that might have just come to mind. Why don't we just close
it off here.
LN: It's really been a privilege ...
END OF TAPE I, SIDE 2, ABOUT 45 MINUTES.