THE INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM
INTERVIEW WITH:
DATE:
PLACE:
INTERVIEWER:
OTHERS PRESENT:
Verna L. Reichert
November 19, 1986
La Grange, Texas
Bill and Precious Gregg
Murlene and Atlan Citzler
R: I'm Verna Reichert, the •.• I'm almost 90 years old.
I'm the oldest native born woman in La Grange and I've lived
on this same piece of ground my whole life which is rather
unusual. I was born and raised in the house next door and
then Frank and I built this house in 1930 and have been here
ever since.
G: Well, that is good news.
R: (laughter)
G: This is the 19th of November, Wednesday, Bill Gregg
taking recording in La Grange, Texas .
R: Now, what do you want to know? (laughter)
G: Old times stuff, of course, This is oral history for
the University of Texas ITC archives, so •••
R: Yes. Uh huh.
REICHERT 2
G: Yesterday, we don 't care •.. we just ••• many yesterdays
ago, that's what we want. Anything interesting.
R: Well, I have t o stop and think.
G: You've already told us one interesting thing about
living on the same property all your life.
R: Yes. Uh huh. Uh huh. Of course, I'm an only child. I
have two sons , one here and the other one in ••• in Houston
and I lived during the 1913 flood which was exciting. I had
a real good friend who lived in the upper part of town,
Elvira Heim Sheldon, and her brother had a little buckboard
and a pony and we rode up and down Main Street and saw the
houses, two-story houses, one-story houses, floating down the
river in back of the Heim's place, and on the barns we saw
cows and horses standing on the roof. On the chicken houses:
we saw chickens on the roof. Everything going down the
river. 'Course that was real exciting.
Then the next day, why, we couldn't go on Main Street
because of the river. It came up to this corner. In fact,
we had 3/4 of an inch over the floor of the house next door,
and went to the dividing line between here and the Moore
place. And a few days after the flood was all over, settled,
why, I went out and talked to Mrs. Moore, who was quite old
at that time, and she had broken her hip and was on crutches.
And with her crutch, she punched down in the ground ••• She
said, "That's exactly as far as it went in 1868." So it
seemed like that's the limit, the dividing line between these
two propert ies. You see, the reason it got so high on
REICHERT 3
R: this side was because the railroad dump went through it
over this way ••• more. But that was really exciting. Has
has someone else told you about it?
G: No. No. No.
R: Etaerio Club, Thirteen Club, and, of course the
Courthouse Square, there was an iron fence around the
Courthouse at that time, and it was under water. And the
daring young men in town took their boats and oars and
floated around the Courthouse and •••
MC: My Daddy talks about that, around the .•.
R: •• all around •• • around t he square
MC: •• He talks about floating over the
'em. He floated
R: •• and I bet he was, so • • •
MC: .• over ••. over the iron fence.
he was one of
R: Iron fence? Uh huh. Of course , I didn't get to go to
the lower part of town at the time. We stayed around here
where we could see it. And the evening before it really
came up. My parents and I walked down to the .•• on .•.
which is now Travis Street where the Janssen brothers'
blacksmith shop used to be. 'Course that's all burned down
now and that's, you know, that's the last bank of the
Colorado River, where that rise is, and we came over that
and Papa said, "We bett er hurry home because it's gonna
spread in a hurry now." And we walked up that block on Main
Street and on the corner where the furniture store is now
.•• there was an old wooden building (ca r or truck passes
REICHERT 4
R: by) and they called it The Fink Building and it had a
basement down there, and we could hear the water rushing in
to the basement. And so , well, Papa said, "We'd better
hurry home. It's gonna spread in a hurry, now." And we
had a fence around the house and we walked on the dry land
and we looked out ••• the water was up to the fence. And I
said, "Well, it looks ••• maybe it won't come any further."
But we fooled around a little longer and packed some things
in a suitcase and we had to wade out the back door and that
just happened in just a few minutes. It went so fast.
'Course luckily ••. and we were lucky, we had an underground
cistern, so we had ••. see, we had 3/4 of an inch of water
in that ••• over the floor (car passes by) next door, and we
were lucky we had an underground cistern , and the water was
clean in there, so we had something to scrub with. But , at
that time, the power plant was down on the river, so there
was no water and there was no electricity. So we were
fortunate that we had clean water we could scrub with.
(laughter)
MC: And the water ••• and the flood did not get into your
underground system?
R: No. You see , it's built up right up under the floor
and so we were lucky it didn't get too messy. We had 13
cats at the time and
MC: Oh.
R: I don 't know what happened to the 13 cats. We never
saw 'em again. (laughter)
REICHERT
? : (laughter)
R: They hate water! (laughter)
PG: Oh, yes. (laughter)
G: In my view, floods are not all bad.
R: (laughter) No.
G: You lost the cats.
5
R: Yes, we lost • • • (laughter). I don't know why we had
so many cats, but you know how they do. They multiply.
PG: (laughter)
R: They have a way of doing that. (car passes by)
PG: Well, did you have a long sustained number of days that
rained that built up the river?
R: Oh, yes.
high school.
It was ••• it was in 1913. I was a junior in
It was in 1913, and it rained and it rained
and it rained and at recess, we'd run out and look at the
sky and see if we could see a break in the clouds, but never
a break in the clouds or a ray of sunshine. And t he reason
everything flooded so, because all the creeks were full, all
the ditches were full, and the water was so ••• and the
ground was so completely saturated. There was no place for
it to go! We don't get rains like that anymore.
PG: Was there ••• was there a storm that came in ••• that
caused the rains or anything that you know of •••
R: No .
PG: •• that caused • ••
R: There was a cloudburst between here and Bastrop that
really caused the overflow .
REICHERT 6
G: Yeah, that did it.
R: And, you know, I have so many people say, "Oh, we'll
never have a flood again because they have those dams up in
Austin.•• I said, "Mark my words, those dams won't do a damn
bit of good if we have a cloudburst between us and Bastrop
like we did in 1913."
PG: Uh huh.
(laughter)
R: And then, of course, I saw the first airplane,
Katherine Stinson We used to have a Fair at ..••. where
the Legion Bowling Lanes are. There used to be what they
called the "Casino" and oh, just a group of people here in
La Grange went together and built this amusement place.
They had a dance once a month and once a year in May they
would have the Fair. (car passes by) The May Fair. And
they always tried t o have some special attraction ••. Like
one year they had this ••• the first airplane that comes to
La Grange. And Captain Stinson, who flew in from San
Antonio and, I think there's a field in San Antonio •••
PG: Yeah, Stinson.
R: •• named for her.
PG: Uh huh.
R: And we all trekked up to the Coca-Cola Park which is at
the end of Main Street and she took off from there and flew
out across the river and came back again. We all paid a
dollar to see her fly . (laughter)
PG: Oh, my goodness ! (laugher) I thought you meant s he
took you with her.
REICHERT 7
R: Oh , no!
PG: That was jus t a single-seater.
R: I did have an e arly airplane ride . My mot her and I
visited my cousin in Robstown and they were having some kind
of Feast , Fiesta, in Corpus and that must have been about
the early '20's, I g uess , and they took people up in the air
and this ••• when I think of it now, it must have been wired
together with bailing wi re , it was such a wreck. But my
cousin, Gerhard Balzer, wanted to ride and his wife wouldn 't
go . She was scared. Nobody would go. I sai d , Well, I'll
go with you ." So he and I flew out across t he Corpus
bay at Corpus. And that was my firs t ai rplane ride.
(laughter)
PG: And that was e xciting! (laughter) Well, what else
happened. Can you think of some ••• ask me some .
(laughter)
G: What about the fi rst automobile?
R: Oh , yes ! Mr. Henry Schumache r, who lived up on the
next corner , had the first a utomobile in town. He had made
some money on the stockmarket and he bought this little car
from Sears and Roebuck. You know, at t hat time , they had
wheels like ••• like buggy whee l s and they were •.• and they
didn't have a steering wheel, they had a rod that they
s t eered with .
G: Tiller.
R: Tiller? Is that what they called it? Anyway , Mrs .
Katie was corning down the hill and Mrs. Schumacher had some
of her nieces in the car with her a nd right here Jesse fell
REICHERT 8
R: out and she just grabbed her by the skirt and put her
back in again! (laughter)
PG: (laughter)
R: A few months ago, I was asked to come down to Houston
to talk to a group of people about these things that
happened here a long time ago and John Schumacher, you know
him, Atlan, John Schumacher had a picture of that first
little automobile and it was exactly the way I remembered
it. I wish I had a picture of it now, but I was glad he had
a picture of it. And of course, he was interested in me
telling that and we used to have a young man here, his name
was Harvey Richardson. He lived in the house where Anna
Kallus lives now, and but oh, I guess, a livery stable
or something like that on the corner where the Ehlers Cotton
Company Building is now and he was always tinkering with
automobiles. And he took an old buckboard and had built a
motor for it and drove it around the square. So that was
really an automobile, too. And (laughter) when the •••
G: Do you remember whether he built the motor or did he
buy one and install it?
R: I really wouldn't know. I imagine he installed it. He
was a tinkerer and, of course, the first people in town
after that who had automobiles were Mr. Stolz and Mr. Frede
and Mr. Megenberg and Mr. Caldwell, who lived over here on
the corner . They were some of the first ones that had
automobiles in town. And, of course, the streets, we had no
gravel on the streets, no pavement and right here in front
REICHERT 9
R: of the house, the mud would get a foot deep in the
winter time. It was black clay and so they ••• graveled
Ebline Street that's on the southern part of town so they'd
have a place to ride. And that's when I learned to drive a
car in 1913. Lorenz Stolz taught me how to drive a car.
(laughter) So I've been driving since 1913 without a wreck.
(knocks on wood) Knock on wood.
G: Good for you!
R: 51 years, I think that's a pretty good record!
PG: Uh huh.
G: That's wonderful. That's wonderful
R: Oh, and then, •course I bet , you know there was
something always wrong with •em, so t hese men had a man come
from Ohio. John Steinbrook , you remember John Steinbrook?
AC: You bet.
R: So they built a corrugated iron building on the corner
where the Ehlers Cotton Company used to be and it had
G-A-R-A-G-E across the top. And Elviera He im and I used to
always, we 'd walk to town on Sunday. We managed to get a
nickel from our parents and we'd go buy glace. Well, do you
know what a glace is? It's shaved ice with preserves on it!
(laughter)
G: Uh huh.
R: We thought that was great! And we saw that
G-A-R-A-G-E, what in the world is that? Garage. Well, come
to find out it was •garage•. (laughter) That was our first
experience with a garage. (laughter)
REICHERT 10
G: Blacksmiths run it? Do you recall? Did the
blacksmiths start it? Many places, you know, the blacksmith
was the first
R: No, they got this mechanic from Ohio. Name John
Steinbrook. He ••• he fixed the automobiles. We used to
have a tiny laundry down on the corner where the Post Office
is now? It was still ••. on the corner ••• an L shape and
they asked us, (old timers) and his name was John. You
know, lot of people had an EMF. Do you remember the EMF?
And I said, "What is that?" And he says, "That's Every
Morning Fix-it."
G: Amen.
(laughter)
R: And that's the way it was. They had to be fixed every
morning. (laughter) And ••• let's see
PG: When you were a young girl, do you remember how
many peopl e lived here in La Grange?
R: Oh, not • ••
G: Approximately.
R: •• too many. Around, I guess, 2,000 or 2,500,
something like that.
G: A big town?
R: Uh huh. It was a right nice size town.
MC: It was larger at that time when there were so many
people around the neighbor ••. in the neighboring county
R: Uh huh .
MC: •• because there were so many small farms •.•
REICHERT
R: Uh huh.
MC: But then it dropped off ••.
R: Yes.
11
MC: •• and the population went down. All the people went
to the cities.
R: And then it increased again . . .
MC: •• and then came back.
R: Like it has now. We used to have Grandi Brothers, I
guess you're too young to remember that, too? That was a
melodrama show, (car passes by) a tent show that come every
summer, and they always pitched their tent on the corner
where the Post Office is now. And, oh, we were always so
thrilled when Grandis came to town. It was the whole sum of
10 cents. And then they had Chautauquas on the corner, too.
They were .•• they had musical programs and melodramas and
things like that. It was more of an educational thing.
MC: One thing I remember were the Friday night programs.
R: Oh, weren't they fun?
MC: (laughter)
R: My kids grew up with that. And then when that was
all vacant there. But before that when I was a little bitty
kid, they had rent houses all on that block. There were 3 or
4 rent houses on ..• on the west end ••• side of the block .
And I remember one time a child in one of the houses had
diptheria or typhoid ••• typhoid and my Mother said, "Don't
you walk down there. You might get that germ . And you
might get typhoid!" So, I sure stayed away from there.
REICHERT 12
R: That ••• that block has changed a whole lot. See , the
high school on the corner where the fire station is, that
was the high school. That's where I went to school and this
••• this was all vacant, the southern part was all vacant
before the Post Office was built there. And every Friday
night they had a program there. Do you remember those?
They were so much fun. We always had a home town program
and they carried their chairs and benches and things out
there. Kids rolled around on the grass.
AC: Mr. George Lenert always MC'd thosethings.
R: Yes. Uh huh.
MC: I remember one time he was made in charge •••
R: Well, I don't know , he may have some ..• I don't think
he worked with it all the time. I really don't know who was
in charge of it. He may have been. He was a very •.• of a
very musical family and he started the Handel Club, too. Do
you all r emember the Handel Club?
No.
R: It was a musical club all over .•. there was like Mrs.
Fanny Heidishack and Martha Rosenburg and Alma Lueders and
Rose Kroll, and Nora Pierce and Mr. George and I don't
remember the men, but anyway , they had a choral club that
put on very nice programs •.• upstairs, above where the •••
the insurance office is now.
AC: Well , they used to have a brass band. The Chamber of
Commerce had a brass band one time
R: I have a picture of the first of the La Grange City
REICHERT 13
R: Brass Band. It's down at the Museum. But I'll tell
you who gave it to me •• Mrs. Henry Goldhammer, you know,
she was Dumpty Weerens• aunt? And she called me one day and
says, "I've got a picture for you. I'll mail it to you."
So she sent me that picture and it was Victor Houmouth and
Gus Streithoff and John Alcorn and Leslie Haasse and oh ,
just a bunch of others. They were called La Grange City
Band.
AC: Weren't some of the Witts in it? Alfred Witt?
R: No, this was before
AC: That was before ••.
R: •• then. It was stricly a city band •
AC: Yeah.
MC: I can remember my Mother talkin' about Grandpa Willmann
was in the Maennerchor . What was that?
R: Oh ...
R: Men's choral group .
MC: The men's choir.
R: The men's choral club, uh huh.
MC: And Damen is the women's . . . the . . .
R: Damenchor. Yes. They used to have an interesting
choral club here. I know, my father-in-law, Frank Reichert,
was in it and Mr. Gus Heilig who was the publisher of the
Deutsche Zietung and Mr. Kaiser ••• C. Kaiser and George
Lenert and Mr. Wildner. These are some of your relatives.
MC: Max Wildner.
REICHERT 14
R: And they had a choral club and they called it "Der
Froschen". That's "frogs" in German, and they would meet at
different places. And, of course, they always had a keg of
beer and sandwiches
G: Uh huh.
R: Grandpa Reichert had a ••• a ••• a warehouse on his
property and they usually met in there .•• and they always
had food and ••• and a keg of beer and sang. They had a
real good time. (laughter) And they called it "the frogs,
der froschen".
PG: Ah!
G: You mentioned the railroad. Do you recall, was there
ever a passenger train through town?
R: Oh, yes, we had 2 a day! One went north, and one went
south. (laughter) And when I was growing up they had dance
halls all around here. We went to Plum and Halstead in
Rutersville and my parents liked to dance and we'd ( .•• it
was real convenient. The "Katy" (train) would come through
here about 6 o'clock in the evening.) ••• get off at Halstead
and dance in Wessels' Hall and then about 11 or 12 o'clock,
a train would go the other way and we'd all pile on the
train and ride back to town again. You know when they had
those country dances, they always, around 11 o'clock, they
always had a meal. They had ••. always had sardine
sandwiches. I've had them at open house .••
G: Um-m-m-m!
REICHERT 15
R: •• here. I've had sardine sandwiches and big John
Janssen, you know what a character he is ••• he says, "Just
like we used to eat a t the dances at Rutersville and
Halstead and those places. And he just loved those sardine
sandwiches . (laughter )
G: I do, too.
R: They're all good. (laughter) Now let me stop and
think ••.
AC: (unintelligble) ••• something about the Cozy and also
the Lester Hotel.
R: Oh, yes! Uh huh .
AC: We'll see whether he'll remember Fritz. Remember the
old colored man?
R: Oh , yes! The little, stocky colored man? Everybody
knew and liked Fritz .
R: I don't know what his last name was, but everybody knew
Fritz. We used to have private dances there, you know, the
old ... Lester Hotel they've changd all that now but it was
their dining room they turned into a dance floor for private
dances and it had oak floors in it. And I remember when the
Von Mindens first moved here from Fayetteville, Mrs. Von
Minden scrubbed that floor with lye and I don't know what
all to get it white, you know? And everybody was having
fits, you know, because it was an oak floor and it didn't
need to be scrubbed ! It needed to be waxed and polished ! I
remember Mrs. Garrard had a dance ••• a
REICHERT 16
R: Hallowe'en Dance there one year and when you came in
the door they had •.• she had 2 broomstocks crossed . You
had to jump over the broomsticks to get into the dance hall.
She was always having unusual things; she was full of fun.
Had fun things. You know, I was telling these people in
Houston how we used to not be able to go to the grocery
store and buy a dressed chicken. Do you all remember that?
G: Uh huh.
R: Everybody had chickens in their back yard. And they
always had fryers you know, so they had a long wire about
that long with a hook on it. You'd kinda spot the chicken
you wanted to catch and you'd hook it by the leg and then
the rest of it, you'd have to chop the head off and put
boiling water on it, pick •.• pluck the feathers and scald
••• singe it and then clean it. It was a real feast to have
a fried chicken!
G: I remember because it was on my grandmother's place and
I was a city-slicker so in town we could go to the store.
R: (laughter) Oh, you could? We couldn't do that until
later on. (laughter)
AC: Well , Mr. Weikel talked about scalding the chickens and
plucking them r ight out behind the cafe, you know •••
R: I guess so!
AC : •• and they had fried chicken for dinner , they had to
dunk them in the tub of
R: •• boiling water. Uh huh.
AC : •• boiling water in the back yard there behind the
cafe.
REICHERT
R: I didn't know they ever had to clean their own
chickens.
MC: Oh, yes!
R: That was their job, wasn't it?
used to have the best chicken dinner
Do you remember?
fried chicken
17
They
dinner. Every Sunday, we'd get 2 pieces of fried chicken
and English peas and creamed potatoes and gravy and a drink
all for 25 cents! And it was good food!
AC: You mentioned that Lee Mueller had a menu ••.
MC: Menu. Had an old menu that •••
R: Oh, he did? Well, how nice! Well, before then, there
was a Negro by the name of Fields. He had a restaurant on
the corner where the Hunger Building is now and he always
had good meals . And ••. going back to the Casino again
every New Year, they had a dance there and at midnight, they
served the supper. It was either an oyster supper or a
turkey dinner or a fried chicken dinner and this old Fields,
he always prepared those meals. And they were great. And
then Lueders, you don 't remember that far back
? : What?
R: When the Lueders had a cafe about there where Schmidts
jewelry store is now? Right in that neighborhood. And •••
but you had to tell them the day before if you wanted to eat
lunch there on Sunday. 25 cents for a chicken dinner on
Sunday. But you had to make reservations the day before.
They weren't going to waste any food! (laughter)
MC: (laughter)
REICHERT 18
R: Ask me somethin' else ! (car passed by) Oh! Dancing!
You know, the Casino , you know, they always had a Fair there
and in the summertime, they put out an open-air platform out
south of the ••• of the present bowling lanes and we danced
out there in the summer. And of course, everything was
waltz and two-step. And the Hoppers had moved to Houston
and there was Leo Schumacher, he was the youngest one of the
Schumachers , and he and Eleanor Hopper, his niece, they came
here one year for the Fair. And they said they wanted to
show us the new dance which was the one-step. So everybody
got off to the side and watched 'em do the one-step. Then
when the others got it, everybody e lse did the one-step,
too! But it was .•• it was outlawed at these country dance
halls at Rutersville and Halstead and Plum. They put out
signs, "No Indecent Dancing Allowed".
G: The Grizzly Bear.
R: (laughter)
G: Is that what they called it?
R: No, it was the one-step. The one-step.
G: Oh, that was the name of one of the dances?
R: Maybe so. Uh huh. And if anybody would dance the
one-step , they'd go tap ' em on the shoulder ••• "You can't
dance that in here. That's indecent." Now, wasn 't that
silly? (laughter)
G: No.
AC: The Fair Association started about 1923 •.• '24 ••.
'25?
REICHERT 19
R: Must have been about •.• let's see, I married in •••
when did I marry ••• '22 ••• '23 ••• '22 (unintelligble)
around '22 or, I guess '24, I guess is when t he Fair
Association started. And they used to have horse races up
there •.• mostly sulky races, and Mr. Guy Robson was so
enthusiastic and you see, there was no water up there so
they were drilling a well. When the well was about ready to
come in, why he'd put a cot out there and he slept there all
night. He was going to see that water well come in!
(laughter) And they had planned to have it at a certain
date and they could not finish it. And I know Papa and Mr.
Jake Alexander were on the dance committee. And they hired
..• everybody had Cornelson's Orchestra for the Fair and
since they had postposed it 2 weeks, they went to Beeville.
They were engaged to be there, so they had no orchestra for
the new dance. And some ••• Lawrence Eskee had a little
combo at that time. Well, just get them! And the Committee
said, "Absolutely not. We're going to start this Fair off
right. We 're gonna have a good band." And, of course, Jake
Alexander always went to Houston. He found out t hat Whitey
Kaufman was going to be in Texas, so he got in touch with
him and hired Whitey Kaufamn for, I forget, at that time,
but it was 3 nights for our dances, and they paid him $800
for those 3 nights. And I want you to know, they were ready
to run Mr. Alexander and Papa out of town, spending all that
money for 3 nights of music and do you know, they sold
enough tickets the first night to pay for the whole thing!
(laughter)
REICHERT 20
R: Their theme song was "In a Charleston Cabin." People
just loved itl People just went crazy! Oh, they passed .•.
they were supposed to play until midnight but everybody had
such a good time they came from as far away as Taylor and
Austin •••• all the big ••• the hall was so jammed! But
you might know that they made enough the first night that
they had a crowd in there. And as I said before, they
they had to put off finishing for the ••• for the Fair dance
hall and all for 2 weeks and that floor had to be made in a
hurry, too. And there was no one here who could lay a floor
as quick as they needed it so they imported some Swedish
carpenters from Houston and they were, oh, they had the
biggest , strongest arms you ever saw ••• and big hammers!
And I think they laid that floor in 2 days. About 5 or 6
men and they just went boom, boom, boom! They hit every
nail only one time and then they laid that floor in ••• in
quick time ••• in a short time.
PG: You certainly enjoy music here •••
R: Yes .
PG: •• all the time!
R: We had a lot of real good talent in this town.
MC : Did you go to Houston very much?
R: Every chance I got !
PG: (laughter)
MC: You took the train every time it stopped.
R: Well, even when we built this house in 1930 , Frank and
I would go down on the train in the morning and select our
REICHERT 21
R: wallpaper and, of course, we were in the furniture and
the hardware business, and we bought all of our paper and
paint and all of that kind of stuff wholesale. We had to go
down there to select it. And then we'd come back on the 11
o'clock train. So it worked out beautifully.
MC: Tell them somethin' about the Etaerio Club up here ••.
R: Oh, uh huh.
MC: •• in the building up here.
R: That was built in 1852 by a Judge and Mrs. Stiehl •.•
MC: Aunt Mabel? Stiehl?
R: I think she was a relative. Did you know • •• ?
PG: And , my mother's name is Ujffy .•.
U-J-F-F-Y.
R: Oh! Ujffy! (Erphy - the way it sounds on tape)
MC: And I've heard it pronounced "Weify", so •••
R: Oh, uh huh . Well, I declare.
MC: Tell us about the Etaerio Club.
R: Like I said, it was ..• that was built in 1852 by Mrs
Judge and Mrs. Stiehl, I believe I said. She was
related to the Ujffy's. And, well, I remember when the
Schulte family lived there. I was a little girl at that
time. I used to go over there. They had children. And
this and where that is built out this way now which is
now, what is it, it's a storeroom, I suppose. But that was
their kitchen and dining room. And they had a dirt floor in
there, and 'course when the Etaerio Club bought it, they
tore off those two rooms and there was a division through it
REICHERT 22
R: ••• going east and west and another one this way. And
they pulled that out because they wanted to make one big
assembly room. The Etaerio Club was a ••• they had a
library and it was a ••• an educational thing and they had a
room at the old Opera House and they tore that down in 1912,
I believe it was. And then they had no place to go, so they
bought this from Dr. Garrard. Dr. Ed Garrard who lived on
the other corner and Mrs. Garrard was on the building
committee ••• she ••• you see, she and Mrs. A.B. Garrard and
George Wilrick and Miss Essie Alexander. They were really
the head of the Etaerio Club and Mrs. Garrard was chairman
of the building committee. They had that wall torn out and
it was bricks also. So they said , "Well, you can have the
bricks." And she was thrilled with that. She was going to
do a whole lot with those bricks, so they stacked them in
their back yard and when the hard rains came, they al l
disintegrated
G: Oh, my!
R: .. because they hadn't •• been fired.
G: Oh, dear!
R: That's where the bricks went. But it was real l y a nice
thing. They had a lot of nice things there ..• programs.
At one time , they had built a platform out on this west
side . And they'd have little ••• little skits , I remember.
Do any of you remember Vastine Rice? Mrs. Sidonia Rice 's
son?
AC: Yes. I remember Mrs. Sidonia (Siddie) Rice .
REICHERT 23
R: Well, her son , Vastine, and I know •. he and some girl,
they did a cakewalk and all that kind of stuff, you know.
And they used to have card parties out in the yard; big
card parties. But there was a time here when they had these
huge bridge parties. They'd have as many as 15 and 20
tables, as many tables as they could get in the house. And
some of them would have them out on the lawn at the Etaerio
Club because they didn't have room in their houses. And, I
don't know- they must have bought that about 1913 ••• the
Etaerio Club bought it about 1912 or '13. And at the last ,
it was just Mrs. George Wilrick and Mrs. James Garrard and
Miss Essie Alexander. They were the only ones left and they
could not take care of it so they gave it to the city with
the stipulation that they would always have to keep it in
order and not ..• not destroy ••• which, I think is a great
thing, because it is •••
G: I see it has a historic marker on it.
R: Uh huh. It's the German fachwerk. You know what the
German ••• you're from San Antonio, you know what the German
fachwerk is. And it's the only building in town, I believe,
that is a .••
G: I wanted to check. In other words, the wood ••• the
wood is ••• is the structure. The brick is made of filler.
R: Yes. That's right. Uh huh. And, of course , now it's
just one great big room and the Art Club has it. Is it the
Art Club or what do they call that?
REICHERT
I: (unintelligble) (car passes by)
AC: Mr. Ehlers, Mr. Alfred Ehlers talked about all the
trunks and stuff in the Opera House or whatever that was
over here that was entertainment
R: Uh huh. Uh huh.
AC: He never did talk too much about the entertainment.
24
R: Well, you know, being half-way between Dallas and
Houston, about half-way, this would be a convenient
stop-over for the Opera traffic and we had real good plays.
That was a beautiful Opera House. I ••. I have a picture of
it .•• Have you seen pictures of it?
AC: I don't recall.
R: I think all ••• I might have it here , but so many of my
old pi ctures are down at the Museum .
G: Good place.
R: Yes. Well, now you see , they had hundreds of pictures
for Sesquicentennial here, but that's until December that
we'll get all of our pictures back. Kathy came here almost
in tears one day. Nobody was bringing her pictures. She
knew I had a l o t of 'em. I had boxes of ' em. So, we went
through them and she took stacks of our pictures down there.
Then whe n I went down to see , I was almost ashamed of so
many pictures being mine, but that's why so many of my
pictures are down there because people were not bringing
them in. But they did bring 'em later and they had a rea l
good display. If you had time, you ought to go down and
look at those old pictures.
REICHERT 25
PG: Oh, yes, I'd love to.
R: Uh huh. They're all around the wall. I think they're
still there. I haven't been down there recently. And on
the corner where the Conoco station is, there was Meyer's
Blacksmith Shop.
AC : Right.
R: Mr. Henry and Albert Meyer had a blacksmith shop
there.
AC: I remember it.
R: And they sold it to ••• Mr Darter and Pete Looney .
What was his name?
AC: Darter.
R: He sold it. And they put a beautiful brick building
there. They had a hardware store in there . And then they
had a chance to sel l it. It was there about a year ••• old
and they got a good price for it from the oil .•• Shell
Oil Company . And they sold it to Shell Oil Company and
built one down there where Bohat-Todd is now. That
that was (unintelligible), and I have a yardstick from
Loaney & Co. business down there. I showed it to him one
day and he was so surprised I still had it.
G: Well , that was good wood in those old yardsticks.
R: Yes , they were. It was oak. It's the best yardstick I
ever had. I'm holding on to it.
R: I remember the tree business. You know, I've been
known as the tree lady because I wanted to save our live
REICHERT 26
R: oaks. And the way that started •.• years ago they had
a beautiful live oak down there in front of the Alexander
home; was where the record office is now; in front of the
Alexander home. They called it "Grandma's Oak" and those
limbs were all across the street and one year, one of those
limbs broke and fell on an automobile, a Model T Ford. And
it cost the city about $1,000 and they hated the tree ever
after. So when ••• it was when Fatty Von Minden was mayor.
We had a tree man here and some way or other they got him to
condemn it. The tree was filled with aphids and should be
taken out. And how long did they work on that tree to get
it out? 3 or 4 days or a week to dig it out. And, of
course, ••• when they had ••• I went to the ••• I was a good
friend of the Alexanders and went to see them and I tell
you, it was like a funeral in that family. They cried and
all that ••• they destroyed Grandma's beautiful oak. And
it was one of the prettiest oak trees in town. So that's
when I .•• I called this man who said that the tree was in
bad shape ..•
R: And I asked him, I said , "Was that tree really in as
bad a shape as they said it was?'' " No, Ma'm, there was
nothin' wrong with that tree that cleaning out and feeding
wouldn't .•• would have saved it. And it could have been
there for another hundred years." That's when I got busy.
I went to Miles Morris and had him to write out some
petitions and that's when I circulated petitions. I think I
REICHERT 27
R: got about 700 signatures. It's a whole lot. And it's
permanently before the city council. They want to cut down
all these trees in the middle of the street. I was in a
council meeting one night, they were talking about the
trees, and Mr. Reeder, you know he's on the council now or
something, and he said, "If I had my way I'd cut down every
live oak tree in town."
R: No, he's a commissioner.
AC: Commissioner.
R: He says, "Well, if I had my way, I'd •.. they'd cut
down every damn live oak tree in town." And I jumped up on
my feet ••• I said, "Over my dead body, you'll cut down our
live oak trees!" So we got some real hot arguing ••• oh ,
that's right. There's a petition before the council. It's
permanent. And that's what helps to keep La Grange pretty,
I think, it's the trees.
MC: Oh, of course.
AC : Yes. It does .
R: There were 2 up there ••••• at the lumber yard.
MC: I'll never forget that.
R: And when we found out the Highway Department was going
to take those trees down, Mrs . Garrard and Miss Essie
Alexander and I went up there and we talked to them. And
they said , "But, it's just too dangerous on the highway.
They just have to be removed" ••• and we were convinced that
REICHERT 28
R: it was dangerous so we didn't fight it. Now, just
about 2 years ago, I got in a hassle again with trees. Dr.
Royce Keilers called me, he says, "Verna, they're cuttin'
down all the live oak trees on the Rutersville Highway!" I
said, "My God, that can't be! We can't let 'em do that!"
So, I went out there and I saw, you know where those trees
arch over the highway? It's beautiful!
G: Yes, it is.
R: And they were cutting all those live oaks down. I went
to Mr. Gold. He was at The Highway Office. I never talked
as hard in my life as I did. I stayed up there. I wore
that man down! I talked to him for an hour! But they
didn't cut down any more. And he said, "Well, people could
run against those trees and get killed!" I said, "Well, why
couldn't they stack up all the tires like I've seen them do
in other places and they'd hit the tires and they wouldn't
get hurt?" But, anyway, the trees are still there. That one
in front of that man, what is his name, Thompson, Taylor or
what? You know, he goes to our Church.
MC: Smith. Tanner Smith.
AC: Tanner Smith.
R: Tanner Smith. Yes. And they had cut part of his tree
down but they left it. I haven't even gone out there to see
if it's sprouted out. But I feel like I did some good
saving those trees ••• (laughter)
REICHERT 29
R: •• on the highway. So I've always worked to save our
trees. Mine look pretty bad right now. And they're not as
pretty as a lot of 'em, but I love 'em, anyway.
MC: I do, too.
R: They make La Grange.
G: When you start to think about cutting trees down, just
remember it's a whole lot easier to cut one down than it is
to grow one.
R: It really is. Do it a whole lot quicker. It might
take 200 trees . . . or years to grow one and cut it down in a
day or so. Have you seen the one up here on Fannin Street,
on that vacant lot? That's the most gorgeous tree in town.
You must take 'em by there ••• on Fannin Street ••. on this
street .•• on the left hand side. It covers the whole lot.
MC: Standing' in front of Dr. Nolan or the Nolan place?
R: No, it's further up. You know where •••. the Citzler
girl that married Lea ••• Lea .••
MC: Oh, up there. Oh, that's ••. that's the Manny Paddiof
Tree. OK. All right.
MC: Yeah.
R: Whose is it?
MC: Manny ••• Paddiof ••• Manny Paddiof's
AC: Yes.
MC: We'll go by there. Uh huh.
AC: We'll go by, yes.
R: It' s a beautiful tree and another pretty one is down
REICHERT 30
R: here on the Von Minden property. There was a lady •••
a couple .•• they were ••• oh, what organization was it?
Don Carlson was President at that time and he called me and
asked me if I'd entertain this lady. Her husband was
president, and so I took her all around town and I had
MC Rotary.
R: Rotary . That is right. Yes. Uh huh.
So I showed her the one there on the Von Minden
property and the one on the corner. Now that is from an
acorn from the big tree because it has the same
characteristics. You go by there and see it. It has that
one long limb going down. The young tree has that same
characteristic.
R: So that's inherited from one tree to another, which I
think is rather interesting. (car passes by) Unusual.
AC: By any chance, is the largest oak tree in Texas here in
La Grange?
R: I really don't know where the largest oak tree ••• I
think it's on Goose Island •••
AC: Goose Island State Park.
G: Goose ••• yes, that's right.
?: Where the oak tree is?
G: The refuge. ( Aransas)
R: Uh huh. I wonder ••• ! wonder if it's bigger than the one
here on Fannin Street. I wonder. We ought to measure that.
You get around a lot Atlan, why don't you go measure it?
REICHERT
MC: (laughter)
R: Well, that is a beautiful tree •••
MC: It is.
R: •• over there and they are gorgeous which is great .
31
(pause) Mrs May Eldridge used to tell me about, you know,
she was a little tomboy, loved to dance and loved to play
tricks on people, but she was a little girl when they built
the railroad through here. And the Robson property went
down to the street that .• • down there on Lafayette Street ,
and she said they had a picket fence and she always stood up
on that fence and watched 'em lay that railroad and her
mother would see her and she'd come pull her off of there
••• "You can't do that. You're gonna hurt yourself !" But
as soon as her Mother was gone, she'd be up on that fence
watchin' ' em lay those rails again. And she told me about
Mrs. Pietorious , you know, Mrs. Nita Logan's and Mrs.
Eldridge ' s mother was a Pietorious. And she was a sister to
Mrs. Sidonia Rice. And their ... their home was where Mrs.
Hatfield is now and they .•• you know at that time, the
widows had a way of making a living. They 'd have a little
store or they'd make home-made cookies , home-made cakes and
things and they'd sell needles and pins and just little
knick-knacks. She had, I don 't know how many children of her
own, and she had adopted some , and when they would sound the
alarm that the Indians were about to attack, why she'd
gather her crew and take ' em down to the basement. And
REICHERT 32
R: then they would sound the all clear alarm, and then all
the kids and the people would come out of the basement
again.
PG: (laughter)
R: But she told me that her grandmother d i d that, and I
thought that was interesting.
G: Glad they were able to come out of the basement!
R: Yes. (laughter)
PG: What Indians were around here then?
R: I don't know what
PG: Comanches?
R: •• tribe it was. I never have heard. It ought to be
somewhere.
MC: They found some relics, you know, of the Indian relics,
when they started digging down below the bluff there at the
river ••.
R: Oh, is that so?
MC: What were those people's names that were here and were
gonna develop that theater down there and they •••
R: Oh, that amphitheater?
MC: Oh, yes.
R: Oh, that amphitheater. Oh, God, how we worked for them
to get that amphitheater here!
MC: Yes, they had dug up some relics when they were pokin'
around for that •••
R: I was on that committee.
AC: On this ••• what was it ••• the bluff?
REICHERT 33
MC: The bluff. Yeah. When they were here, they had dug up
some. And G.D. Mueller had some of those ••• bones or
somethin' that they had dug up •••
R: Oh, he did? Uh huh. Well, you see, we were a rather
unusual family .•. it was my mother and her 2 sisters, Mrs
••• Mrs. Fitz Wessels and Carl Amberg and one brother,
Rudolph Speckles, and they each had one child and the
Speckles lived across the street. There was a rent house
there, and we always got together on Christmas and on the
24th of December, they ..• they'd come early in the
afternoon, they couldn't wait until Santy Claus came, you
know
R: So, well, we were bored, we didn't know what to do, so
we'd walk up on the hill and we'd always find arrowheads up
there. We'd go up there and look for arrowheads. And then
at dusk, well, then we'd come home and the Speckles had
their tree first, and , of course, we all had a gift, and
they had their relatives, the Zwieners moved out at ••• out
1n the country close to Halstead.
And then we'd have our tree and of cours e, we'd all get
a gift here. Then we'd go the the Ambergs, another tree ,
and then we 'd go to the Wessels, and so we really had a big
Christmas Eve. We had 4 Christmas trees to go to.
And at that time, Frank Reichert was one, and the
Ellinger boys , you know, Judge Ellinger's boy, Rancell
Dr. Ellinger's son, Rancell ••• , and they we re all crazy
about fireworks. And those boys would save
REICHERT 34
R: their money, teenagers, all year so they could buy a
bunch of fireworks at Christmas and they always had these
two wheeled carts at the depot that they would carry
lugguage from the train to the depot, and they'd go by there
and they'd get those carts and they'd fill 'em up with
fireworks. They'd go up and down the streets with Roman
candles and skyrockets, and the bad part were these canon
crackers. Have you ever seen those canon crackers?
G: I neve have.
R: They're about 2 inches long, about an inch and a half
thick •.• they'd come to a post and they'd put one of those
on a post ••• they'd just blow the post to smithereens.
There was many a fence in town that was ruined by them
and of course , those things were outl awed later on •••
(laughter) But when we'd come from my Aunt Emma Wessels,
the smoke was so thick that we could hardly breathe. That
was all from those fireworks that those boys set off .
PG: I love the smell of fireworks but that would be too
much!
R: That was too much! I tell you, it was terrible! We
almost choked comin ' home .•• the smoke was so thick!
(unintelligible) many years. (laughter) They outlawed it.
And we used to always have •.. even ••• when I was little,
we had paper ballons. Did you ever have paper balloons?
MC: I guess so.
R: They were about this high and about this big around and
there was a wad of excelsior under there and you'd saturate
REICHERT 35
R: that with kerosene and light it and of course, that
heat would fill the ballon and then it would take off in the
distance. So I had a spare one here from one Christmas. And
the Will Caldwells lived on the corner, Will and Robert
Caldwell, and so Will and I always played together, and I
got one of those balloons and we were going to send it up
but like dumb kids , we sent it up under the live oak tree!
G: Oh!
R: (laughter) It set the live oak tree on fire!
(laughter) There was some excitement in the neighborhood!
(laugher) Everybody came running with their garden hose to
put out the fire! (laughter) Everytime I saw Will after
that he'd say, "Verna, want to set anymore live oak trees on
fire?"
R: I said, "No , I don't do that anymore!" I learned my
lesson.
MC: Did you make the ballons out of papier mach~?
R: No, they were tissue paper.
MC: They were tissue paper.
R: You would buy them.
MC: Oh.
R: And they were ready-made. And even , well, after Frank
and I married and we had the little boys ••• he's •.• all
his life, he's crazy about fireworks. And he always ordered
a bunch of balloons and we'd send 'em up and they'd go, of
course, usua l ly go north. And we followed them in the car,
REICHERT 36
R: but we never did find them. But you had to ••• those
things could have set a hay meadow on fire .••
AC: Hay meadow on fire, right!
R: •• or a haystack or something! But we did n't even
think about that! (laughter)
R: Oh, we had a lot of fun and of course, we used to have
all open ditches in town and when we had a heavy rain, why,
the rain would run down those open ditches and all the kids
in the neighborhood got together and waded in the ditches.
There were lots of cut feet but that didn't stop us.
(laughter)
MC: Did you have any crawfish ••• running in on the .•.
R: No , we used to have those at a park, out there in you
neighborhood •.• Atlan Citzlers.
END OF TAPE 1, SIDE 1, 45 MINUTES.
SIDE 2, BLANK.