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PERSONAL HISTORIES
Excerpt from: Christmas in Her Heart

            “Do you think Gregor will come?” I asked Mom. She stirred the gravy, never looking up.

            “I’m not sure but he knows we eat Christmas dinner at 12:30,” she replied.

            “Will we wait for him?” I asked. 

            “No, he may be having Christmas with his brother in Calgary.  But set his place.”

            After laying out the last fork, knife and spoon and checking that Daddy had his favorite knife, I stood at the south window, searching the snow-covered hills for a glimpse of Gregor, our old bachelor neighbor.  If he were coming to Christmas dinner as he had done for years, he wouldn’t drive.  From his small wooden shack, he would walk three miles cross-country, no matter how deep the snow or how high the drifts, forging a trail as he went.

            “I see him!” I announced in the same voice you would shout ‘Bingo’ in a crowded hall. Gregor had just come into view on the brow of the hill above the potato patch. The tall, lean, solitary figure with his head bent against the freezing temperatures took long, purposeful strides in a straight line down the hill.

            “Let’s start putting the food on the table then.  Call your father and the boys. We can eat as soon as he gets here,” Mom said, laying the last package from under the Christmas tree beside Gregor’s plate.  My guess was it contained a pair of heavy grey wool socks that all the farmers favored.  That’s what Gregor had received the previous year, the year before that, and the year before that.  The socks always seemed to give him a great deal of pleasure, just like my new tea set, books and doll did for me, but my gifts were delightfully different each year. 

            We took Gregor’s presence at Christmas and many times on Sunday for granted.  He was a quiet man – fully acceptable by my family’s standards.  Daddy used to say that if we kids never learned anything good from Gregor, we never learned anything bad either.  Gregor acted unfailingly like a gentleman as he went from farm to farm in the area, helping with chores here, sawing firewood there, putting in the crop here or taking off the harvest there.  On Christmas Day though, it was to our place that he gravitated.  He could sense how truly welcome he was.

PERSONAL PROFILES
 Excerpt from: Lest We Forget

            At over 90 years of age, Winston Parker walks with long, purposeful strides around Okotoks, Alberta and never with more energy than on Remembrance Day, November 11.  When Canadians pause annually to acknowledge the courage and gallantry of those who have defended Canada’s freedom, you’ll find him at the front of a school assembly or the podium at a special memorial service.  He knows of what he speaks.

Winston was 22 years old when Britain declared war on Germany in 1939.  Before Canada began enlisting airmen, he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force. After training in Canada and England, he was attached to the Royal Air Force 101 squadron because there were no Royal Canadian Air Force bomber squads. He served as a Wellington Bomber gunner on 11 trips.  On his second trip for the Royal Canadian Air Force Moose Squadron -- his 13th mission in total -- he was shot down.  What followed were three grisly years in unspeakable conditions in Stalog VIIIB near Frankfurt, Germany.   Somehow, he lived to tell the tale, coming home to ranch in Southern Alberta in 1945.

Over the years, Winston probably has served as master of ceremonies at 100 weddings and dances, and delivered eulogies at the same number of funerals.  His name carries weight around the communities of Millarville, Black Diamond and Turner Valley.  He attended a little white schoolhouse at Red Deer Lake as a child, so he’s well known there, as well.  The son of British parents who immigrated to Canada, Winston has always been at home in the saddle, even winning polo trophies as a youth.  For several years in his younger days, he was a cowboy who trailed The Calgary Stampede’s rodeo stock through the streets of the city into the fairgrounds from local ranches.

FAMILY HISTORIES
Excerpt from: Promises to Keep - The Saga of a Western Canadian Farm Family

When the doctor diagnosed her cough as chest congestion, Emily was afraid.  Was she developing lung disease like her parents and would she, too, die at a young age? The physician reassured her that the condition was not a death sentence, especially if she could live in a dry climate for the sake of her health.  That was fine with Arthur.

             First, he suggested that they emigrate to Argentina but Emily was appalled.  The thought of moving to a country where she couldn’t speak the language was very intimidating to her.  The fact that the seasons were reversed because the country was south of the equator did nothing to build Arthur’s case for a new life in the Argentine Republic.  He might have been suggesting they move to Timbuktu, a no less desirable destination so far, far away!

             No amount of coaxing would change Emily’s mind.  That’s when Arthur began to seriously weigh the options available in the former British colony of Canada.  There, free land was available for the taking and many improved farms could be purchased for a small fraction of what land cost in England.  It was a new country without the heavy weight of a rigidly imposed social structure and a nation where a man did not have to be wealthy or inherit land in order to make a good living.  He could “make something of himself,” as the British liked to say.

            Emily knew something of Canada.  After she and her siblings were orphaned, the two older boys were taken into the care of Barnardo’s, a private agency in London that did its best to rescue impoverished children.  Michael had been emigrated to Canada in 1898 and the following year, John Walter traveled in his footsteps for what the agency hoped would be “a better life.”  While it hadn’t worked out for Michael who returned to England and then disappeared from a ship bound for Australia, John Walter had gotten a job as a chore boy on an Ontario farm and was fairing as well as could be expected.  Emily must have hoped that if she and Arthur chose Canada for their new home that perhaps she would see her dear little brother again. 

The Dominion of Canada recruiting office was located in the busy downtown of London at 11 and 12 Charing Cross, which has long been considered the very center of the city.  There, agents like W.T.R. Preston provided not only a host of promotional materials -- posters, brochures, advertisements and testimonials -- but a strong sales pitch that painted Western Canada as idyllic.  Their enthusiasm must have been catching because Arthur was ready to emigrate with his new bride.

ORGANIZATION HISTORIES
Excerpt from: Recollections and Recipes –
Freyburg United Methodist Church, Freyburg, Texas

Rev. Raeke was 30 years of age when he arrived at Freyburg Methodist Church, having previously served at Rose Hill Field where his escape from death was termed a ‘miracle.’  According to an account of the incident, he was at the railroad station waiting for the train.  When a freight train approached, it hit a cow that was thrown on top of Rev. Raeke.  The sudden impact of the large dead animal shattered his leg and he lay unconscious for some time before he was found and sent to the hospital.  It is said that Rev. Raeke ‘suffered unbearably for the rest of his life’ from the accident. 

            Despite his discomfort, he nurtured the congregation and community.  Sunday School at  Freyburg Methodist Church was held at 9:30 a.m. with services at 10 a.m.  At Schulenburg, Sunday School got underway at 10 a.m. and English services were held at 8 p.m.

            A daughter named Esther was born on December 22, 1918 to Rev. Raeke and his wife, Norma, while they were at Freyburg.  She was baptized three days later on Christmas Day in the parsonage by the Rev. A.S. J. Haygood.  

            During his pastorate, Rev. Raeke organized the Ladies Aid Society at Freyburg Methodist Church in 1916, with Mrs. J.R.. Vilt, Mrs. Otto (Adele) Hoehne, Sr. and Emma Stichler assisting.  Freyburg’s eldest member, Marvin Stichler, recalls the name of the women’s organization was Frauen Verein in German.

The primary function of the Ladies Aid Society was to raise funds for church purposes.  However, their meetings doubled as social occasions for the entire family in a period when visiting probably was considered the primary source of entertainment.  The monthly business meetings, that included Bible study, were held at the homes of members and concluded with refreshments, which everyone anticipated with pleasure.

            In the early 1900s, there were many young people in the church and the successive pastors organized them into enthusiastic choirs.  Wilbur Hoehne says his grandmother, Adele Kortlang Hoehne, played the organ and taught Sunday School. A faithful servant of Freyburg Methodist Church his entire life, Wilbur recalls dodging his grandmother’s ‘sloppy’ kisses when he was a small boy.

“My cousin, Leon, and I would race around and hide after church but she always found us and kissed us before she went home,” Wilbur remembers. 

BUSINESS HISTORIES
Excerpt from: And Then There Was Light
(From the local pages of Texas Co-op Power, January 2007)

Upon completion of that northern section, work switched immediately to the 300-mile southern section of the line.  A total of 750 members were patiently waiting for electricity in the communities of Freyburg, Engle, Schulenburg, Dubina, Flatonia, Scott’s School, Moulton, Komensky, Praha, Novohrad, Moravia, St. John, Breslau, New Brun, Weimar, Osage and Wildwood.   This section of the line was fed by the Schulenburg sub-station.

“We built one extension to a house because the children decided their parents ought to have electricity.  The kids put the money down and the house was wired but do you know those parents never would turn on the lights?  They were scared, I think.  They both died, never using it,” Mrs. Bremer recalls.

Another customer story that sticks in her mind is the farmer who watched his meter so carefully that when it got close to 25 kilowatts for the month, he would tell his wife to stop using the electric iron.  In the next day or two – the 20^th of the month - he would read the meter and the family would have another 25 kilowatts to burn in the coming weeks.  Momma could go back to her ironing!

On August 31, 1948, Fayette Electric Cooperative had 907 miles of line serving 2,415 member-owners.  Not all of those who had purchased memberships had power yet, however. 

Fayette Electric Cooperative Manager John F. Luecke estimated that of the 4,500 farms in its service territory, 33 percent were hooked up to electricity at that time.  However, that figure would double to 66 percent with the addition of those served through the expansion project.  In addition to the construction project, upgrades to increase reliability and reduce operating expenses were being made.  This included replacing the old fuse system with automatic oil circuit breakers and sectionalizers, as well as converting part of its existing system from single-phase to multi-phase lines and increasing the size of conductors on some lines.  Fayette Electric Cooperative also wanted to obtain an additional source of power at Schulenburg to ensure it had enough electricity to meet the demand, which had increased 74 percent per connected member-owner in two years. 

            The co-op requested and was granted an additional loan of $150,000 from the REA in March 1948 for improvements to its distribution system.

MEMORIALS
Excerpt from: Our Christmas Angel

No one who ever knocked on mom’s back door went away hungry or if they did, it was their own fault.  It didn’t matter if it was her own kids, grandkids, neighbors, friends, hunters or the health unit nurse.  She invited everyone to sit down at the table, have a cup of tea and something to eat.  She never ran out of pots of tea, piles of food (all of it homemade on the old wood cook stove) or interesting conversation.   She loved to care for people, nurturing their bodies and their souls.

Possessions were of no importance to her.  She didn’t want a new dress, apron or pair of shoes as long as the ones she wore were still serviceable.

Mom was fearless.  However, she met her match one day while she still used a walking cane.  When she heard a commotion in the chicken house in the middle of the day, she went up the yard to check it out.  Rounding the corner of the granary, she came face to face with a massive grizzly bear standing on its hind legs.  Another was eating chop from the feeder in the chicken run.  These two powerful creatures -- mom and the bear -- made eye contact.   Mom said the bear looked her up and down quickly and decided he wasn’t that hungry.  But just in case he changed his mind, mom’s arthritis left her as she turned tail and flew back to the house.   She recalled with wry humor that the worst part of the whole escapade was calling for reinforcements.  She was sure people would question her sanity but my sister Shirley, knew if mom said there were grizzly bears in the yard, there were grizzly bears in the yard.  That evening when her oldest grandson, Robert, drove in to find an army of Fish and Wildlife trucks lined up one behind the other in front of her house, he shook his head, wondering aloud what Grandma had been up to now!

Mom never watched TV a day in her life and had little use for music but she loved to read the newspapers and when her vision dimmed, she listened to the radio.  She was interested in everything.  The week before she died, she asked me what the weather was like one morning, where Shirley was substitute teaching that day and if the United States had declared war on Iraq.  She had a keen wit, seeing humor all around her, although she rarely left the farm her entire life.

Weekly Newspaper Column
Excerpt from: The Fayette County Record – Remember When
(This column appeared in the January 8, 2008 issue.)

Two men were apprehended during a robbery at the Jessie Williams place east of La Grange, known as The Chicken Ranch.  They were surprised during the course of the hold-up by Sheriff T. J. Flournoy and Deputy Charlie Prilop, who arrived in answer to a telephone call.  One man was caught stuffing $394 in a pillow case, while the other held a gun over several women tied up in an adjacent room.  Charged, and the next day indicted by the grand jury during a special session, were Hollie Lee Darr and James Edward Laird of Houston.  Sheriff Flournoy said that Darr, about 60, was on parole from an Oklahoma penitentiary where he had been sent for bank robbery and that Laird, age 26, had a long police record in Houston.  Both were indicted for armed robbery and robbery by assault, and Darr, in addition, with repetition.

A quantity of rough, planed and creosoted lumber and the large shed in which it was stored were destroyed by fire in Winchester.  The blaze was on the place of Gene Haschke, who formerly operated a saw mill at Sulik’s Store but had moved his milling operations at Columbus. 

            Rainfall in the Rutersville area during 1957, although varying by over seven inches in a distance of two miles, was far above the amount recorded at La Grange for the same time period.  Elo Tietjen said he recorded 74.95 inches. 

            Janak’s Cash-Carry Grocery was purchased by Mr. and Mrs. James Zimmerhanzel.

            Stockholders of the Farmers Grain Warehouse Co. of La Grange planned to meet in a special session at the county ag building regarding the company’s proposed expansion program.

            The last phase of Gus Albrecht’s job as a mail carrier for the post office department played out when the La Grange to Ellinger star route was combined with that of Lee Leonhardt’s Carmine to La Grange schedule.  Mr. Albrecht’s job expired with the discontinuance of the last two M-K-T passenger trains. 

MAGAZINE ARTICLES
Excerpt from: My Keepsake Garden Treasures
(The article appeared in Texas Gardener Magazine, May-June 2004)

I’ve tucked my mother-in-law’s legacies in flowerbeds throughout the yard. I’ve hung these timeless treasures in baskets from the oak tree on the patio.  I’ve displayed the heirlooms with pride on the picnic table and grouped them under the covered porch.  Geri’s plants are special.

There’s a six-foot tall purple single Rose of Sharon (Althaea) and a smaller, white double variety with a purple center that grow in side-by-side flowerbeds near the well house.  Geri and her son, who is my husband, Emil, used to argue lightheartedly over its correct name. She scooped up these volunteers 10 years ago from under her own bushes in northeast Houston and transplanted them into tall juice cans. 

I began to thank Geri for the Rose of Sharon but she interrupted, mildly scolding me before I could even get the right words out.  ‘Don’t thank people who give you plants.  It’s not done,’ she advised.  Why ‘it’s not done,’ I’ve forgotten if I ever knew, but I’ve faithfully followed her sage direction.  When I give plants or cuttings away, I repeat her words.  “Now, don’t thank me. It’s not done.”  What follows invariably is laugher and grins as the recipient tries to express her pleasure without using the ‘t’ word.  Gentle and mild, Geri loved to laugh.  Perhaps passing along this garden whimsy was her way of assuring that we’d continue sharing lighthearted moments when she was no longer here to join us.

The two Rose of Sharon plants were the first to make the trip to our 80-acre farm near La Grange and settle in but they weren’t the last.  I’m also the recipient of some of Geri’s hanging baskets including a magnificent deep purple flowering Hoya that sways lazily from the oak tree on the patio every summer.  Moving the waxed leaf beauty, though, becomes a more arduous task each year when it requires the winter comfort of the greenhouse.  I’m infamous for cutting (or hacking, as it also has been described) plants back and dividing them but the Hoya is a different story.  I do trim its tendrils now and then but when the time comes that we can’t handle the pot any longer, I’ll have to crank up my courage and ask my husband to stand by. We’ll share the responsibility of pestering this grand old gal.

Some of Geri’s plants are quite unusual.  When she visited her sister in the State of Washington some years ago, she brought home what she referred to as Deer Tongue.   While I’ve heard the stubby, pronged plant called a succulent, I know little about it.  Gracing the center of our picnic table, it always is a topic of interest to garden visitors.

Geri also fostered and shared several varieties of cacti and ferns with me.  Just like hers, mine grow, grow, grow and I trim, trim, trim, sharing the bounty with friends and several local church fundraisers, as well as the La Grange Animal Shelter’s first plant sale. I know Geri would like that.  Her plants brighten other’s lives, just as they always brightened hers.   I’ve proudly taken a number of them to the Fayette County Fair and have a fist full of red ribbons to show for it.  She would like that too.

Then there’s Mamma’s Garden, a generous flowerbed watched over by St. Frances of Assisi.  The statue once topped a birdbath at her old home but after it broke off, Emil remounted the broken statue on a flat base, surrounding it with rose bushes, iris and other bulbs that pop up with the passing seasons, along with mint so unruly I’m threatening to chop it out once and for all. It’s also in Mama’s Garden that Geri’s faithful little dog, Cody, is buried. 

Very inquisitive, Geri was legendary for picking up seeds and tucking them safely in her pockets.  She stayed on the lookout for new backyard recruits, using a plastic spoon and a Styrofoam coffee cup if those were the only gardening tools she happened to have on hand. 

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