Koeltzow Family in Grimes County (Part Six)
At White Hall, not only did the newly founded White Hall Lutheran church become a community center, but Pastor Forster taught a four-year study of English for the German immigrants.
Otto tells: “Seven young men, ranging in age from 18 to 27 enrolled. Due to spring, summer, and autumn farm work, this language school met four months during the late fall and winter. Our pastor was a capable teacher, and I became proficient enough in English to be regularly called upon to write business letters and papers, as well as to be an interpreter for German citizens.”
“Community picnics drew the largest crowds that were generally held in conjunction with school activities, and Negro tenants joined us in these. The big celebration for the Negroes was June 19, their Freedom Day. The whites ate with them on this day, but at separate tables.
“When the drive shaft of the Navasota gin had snapped, the only person competent to grind down a new one was an old German mechanic who had only recently arrived in Texas. The gin owner sent for me, and I spent from sundown to sun-up communicating back and forth when at daylight the old German mechanic tightened the last clamp and the gin started up again. I was paid fifty cents by the gin operator.”
“In 1896 we had considerable sickness but despite this and the army worm, the cotton yield was fair. When we learned that the paying price for cotton was considerably more in Houston then locally, the farmers began to organize caravans to the big city. There was always the threat of robbers, particularly on the return trip with the farmers having gold coins in their pockets.”
On one instance, young Otto describes an incident involving he and his father. “We were back at the wagon yard, had picked up our guns at the office, hitched the teams, and were ready to depart Houston before daybreak. Just after crossing the bridge outside the wagon yard, father had to halt his team and return to the public toilet located about 200 yards from the road in a grove of giant pines. Since he was carrying our cotton receipts, $700 dollars in $20 gold pieces, and was unarmed, I walked with him. As we entered the pine grove, my eye caught two figures slinking out of the shadows of the bridge toward us. After father entered the toilet I slipped around the building, took a position behind a tall pine tree near the path. When the two men reached a point 10 paces from the toilet, I ordered them to halt and drop their weapons. With gun in hand, I stepped out and covered them until father joined me in the path, then, sending him on to join the wagon train. I backed slowly toward the road. Once on the road, I alerted the drivers, and a cordon of armed riders was formed around the older men driving the wagons, and we continued homeward, arriving without further incident.”
“Our last trip to Houston was in 1898. Thereafter, local buyers began paying competitive prices and we sold our cotton at home. Of all our years in Texas, none saw more drastic events and changes in our family than in 1900. The year began quietly enough, and we were modestly prosperous. By hard work and saving, we owned six head of mules and two mares, five milk cows, three wagons, and all our farm machinery that included three turning plows, three planters, and three cultivators. And there was enough extra in 1899, following the cotton sale, to purchase a surrey. This was an item of family pride. No longer did we have to travel to church in the big farm wagon.”
“But then the malady of the Texas Slow Fever infected each member of the family again starting with father.”
(From Koeltzow’s Biography, and the Sandbar, written by Betty Dunn, Two Rivers Heritage Foundation. Final episode next Sandbar. For more information and membership: www.tworiversheritagefoundation.org.)