| Notes |
- From John E. Campbell, correspondent, note of June 15, 2009
http://www.tshaonline.org/shqonline/apager.php?vol=063&pag=377
A click on the link above will take you to The SouthwesternHistorical Quarterly of January 1960. You will find atranslation of an article written in 1886 by myg-g-grandmother, Emma Murck. She describes her 1850'sarrival in Texas from Germany. It includes her firstimpressions of cornbread, sleeping on the ground (snakes asbedmates!), her suitor, chasing cows and their hidden-awaycalves, and an encounter with raiding Indians. It wasquite an adventure for the daughter of a former armyofficer serving as the city's police commissioner who diedin 1836 at the age of thirty-three in Barmen, Prussia. Thefollowing is an excerpt:
...
After about forty-Four days, we approached ourdestinaion. Before us lay the longed-for coast, butwithout the avenues of oleanders that had been described tous. A hurricane had just recently caused terribledestruction, uprooting trees and washing them away. Galveston, for Texas a big city, looked ot the Europeanslike a set-up of paper toys. The houses stood onposts ready to be moved from one place to another.
As soon as we landed a crowd of people, mostly Germans,rushed aboard ship to welcome the newcomers, to hear thenews from the fatherland and, what soon became apparent tome, to find out if there were any girls aboard, at thattime a rare article, and one reason why most of the youngmen traveled back to Europe to get a wife. Idistinctly remember the following incident. Amiddle-aged man, a baker by trade, looks over thepassengers. He spies a pretty blond peasantgirl. At firs he tries to hire her as a cook, offersher 8, 10, then 12 dollars a month salary, which to usseemed very high, according to our notions. In vain,The young German girl declared she was going inland to herbrother who sent her traveling expenses. "I want tomarry you right now," the baker replied. Whereupon,to my secret satisfaction he got his answer, "To be marriedis exactly what I do not want."
Other similar incidents occurred with different endings,which did not impress me very favorably. Among thecabin passengers there was a schoolteacher who had beensent by a Methodist institute in Switzerland to become thewife of an unknown preacher. After having been withliberal-minded people for weeks, she had been influenced tothe extent that she promised Miss Raabe (the captain'ssister) and me to take the man in question only if she didnot dislike him. When I saw her amoug the brothers andsisters in Christ a few days after we had landed, I thoughtit was time to remind her of her word. Thereupon an elderlyMethodist lady replied, "Children of the word thinkdifferently; we deem it our duty to he useful to a servantof God, ...
From John E. Campbell, correspondent, note of June 16, 2009
From Handbook of Texas History Online: ALTGELT, EMMAFRANZISKA MURCK (1833-1922).
Emma Franziska Murck Altgelt, pioneer, teacher, and author,daughter of Friedrich D. E. and Ambrosine (Reinbach) Murck,was born at Barmen (now in Wuppertal), Prussia, on December4, 1833. Her father, a former army officer serving as thecity's police commissioner, died of typhoid at agethirty-three, when she was only 3½. Her only sibling soonfollowed him. Before Emma was five, her maternalgrandmother and aunt assumed her upbringing in Heinzberg,near the Dutch border. A precocious pupil and the lone girlin a supplementary evening class with forty boys, shestudied algebra, history, literature, and French twelvehours weekly. Before Emma left for Liège to prepare herselfas a teacher of German and English, her family moved to theCologne area.
Charmed by stories her kinsmen the Brachts told of Texas,she sailed from Bremen on the Franziska in October 1854 andlanded in Galveston just days before her twenty-firstbirthday. Her mother settled in Texas also. Emma'sdetermination never to marry did not survive Ernst HermannAltgelt'sqv wooing. After their marriage (July 23, 1855),their home for some twelve years was Comfort, which Altgelthad founded. For 2½ years, starting when the eldest Altgeltchild was barely seven, Mrs. Altgelt conducted the Comfortschool in their home. During the Civil Warqv in 1863,Altgelt, ardently Confederate in a town of strong Unionsentiments, left for Germany at his wife's urging topreserve his fragile health and visit his aging father.After his return in 1865, the family could not rejoin himuntil a cholera epidemic had subsided in San Antonio, wherehe soon became the law partner of D. Y. Portis. For a brieftime their residence in the city was the neglected SpanishGovernor's Palace, which Altgelt had purchased andattempted to renovate. When he acquired a tract on which helaid out what he named King William Street (see KINGWILLIAM HISTORIC DISTRICT), the family moved into a homeconstructed for them there. Hoping Altgelt's health wouldbenefit, they next lived on their farm, Wassenberg, nearBoerne. Almost immediately (1869) an infant son died of achildhood illness. In 1878 another small son's fatal fallhastened the father's death. Soon daughter Antonia'shusband Adolph Benner was murdered and the Benners' infantdied. For forty-four years a widow, Emma Altgelt had tosell properties disadvantageously. Nevertheless she helpedher six remaining children to become educated.
Two visits to her homeland during the 1880s revived herwish to become a writer. She visited California and alsostudied Spanish intensively. At age seventy she wasvisiting close friends and grandchildren in the interior ofMexico. She lived briefly in New Braunfels, then returnedto San Antonio, home of most of her children. Late in lifeher devoted companion was a longtime family servant,Virginia, a former slave. When Emma Altgelt died on July19, 1922, twelve of her twenty surviving grandchildren weremen named Altgelt. Some of her reminiscences, observations,and sentimental descriptive verses have been published,occasionally in translation (her recollections of the earlyyears in Texas are especially prized). Her published worksinclude a collection entitled Beobachtungen undErinnerungen ("Observations and Memories"), published in1930 by the Neu-Braunfelser Zeitung (see NEW BRAUNFELSHERALD-ZEITUNG), and "Schilderungen aus texanischem Leben"("Descriptions from Texas Life"), translated by GuidoRansleben and published in the Comfort News weekly from May22, 1969, through August 5, 1970.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Henry B. Dielmann, trans., "Emma Altgelt'sSketches of Life in Texas," Southwestern HistoricalQuarterly 63 (January 1960). Ethel Hander Geue, New Homesin a New Land: German Immigration to Texas, 1847-1861(Waco: Texian Press, 1970). Crystal Sasse Ragsdale, ed.,The Golden Free Land: The Reminiscences and Letters ofWomen on an American Frontier (Austin: Landmark, 1976).Guido E. Ransleben, A Hundred Years of Comfort in Texas(San Antonio: Naylor, 1954; rev. ed. 1974). San AntonioExpress, June 29, 1977.
Minetta Altgelt Goyne
=====
From Handbook of Texas History Online: SPANISH GOVERNOR'SPALACE.
The Spanish Governor's Palace, at 105 Military Plaza in SanAntonio, was constructed in 1749. The name, something of amisnomer, is traditional; the building was not the home ofthe Spanish governor but served as the residence andheadquarters for the local presidio captain. The one-storymasonry structure is built in the Spanish Colonial style;in the rear is a large patio. A keystone above the entrancebears the date of construction and the Hapsburg coat ofarms. After the end of Spanish sovereignty, the buildingpassed into private ownership. In the late 1860s it waspurchased by E. Hermann Altgelt,qv founder of Comfort inKendall County. He and his family lived there at varioustimes, and the property was held by his widow, Emma MurckAltgelt,qv until the early 1900s. Then the building fellinto a state of disrepair. In 1928 voters in San Antoniopassed a bond issue for the purpose of purchasing andconserving the building, and in 1929-30 the building wasrestored under the supervision of architect Harvey P.Smith.qv Members of the San Antonio Conservation Societyqvaided in restoring and furnishing the historic structure.In 1962 the building was registered as a recorded Texashistoric landmark and is now a national historic landmark.The Spanish Governor's Palace is maintained by the city ofSan Antonio as a museum and is open to the public.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Comfort News, January 1, 8, 1970. San AntonioConservation Society, Conservation in San Antonio since1924 (San Antonio, 1970). San Antonio Express, August 31,1936. Texas Historical Commission, National Register Files.
Name: Mrs. Emma Altgelt
Death date: 19 Jul 1922
Death place: San Antonio, Bexar, Texas
Gender: Female
Race or color (on document): White
Age at death: 88 years 7 months 15 days
Estimated birth year:
Birth date: 04 Dec 1833
Birth place: Germany
Marital status: Widowed
Spouse name:
Father name: Hugo Murck
Father birth place: Germany
Mother name: Ambrosina Von Renpack
Mother birth place: Germany
Occupation: Retired
Residence:
Cemetery name: Private Guard
Burial place:
Burial date: 22 Jul 1922
Additional relatives:
Film number: 2074546
Digital GS number: 4166818
Image number: 3167
=====
Reference number: cn 19406
Collection: Texas Deaths, 1890-1976
Name: Emma Altgeld
Residence: San Antonio, Bexar, Texas
Birth date: 1834
Birth place: Germany
Relationship to head-of-household: Self
Spouse name:
Spouse birth place:
Father name:
Father birth place: Germany
Mother name:
Mother birth place: Germany
Race or color (expanded): White
Ethnicity: American
Gender: Female
Marital status: Widowed
Age: 46 years
Occupation: Keeping House
NARA film number: T9-1291
Page: 207
Page letter: D
Entry number: 4430
Film number: 1255291
Collection: 1880 United States Census [2, 3]
|
1833 - 1922 (88 years)
[1] 
: Address
: Location
: City/Town
: County/Shire
: State/Province
: Country
: Not Set
