Reflections Upon a Blessed and Exciting Life - No 5: Elementary School Joys

My elementary education was in the wonderful two-room Zion Lutheran School in Walburg, Texas. Maybe it’s because one remembers pleasant times and blots out the bad, but my recollections are all happy and joyful.

I eagerly anticipated school. My teacher “Teacher Bleeke” was a family friend. My dad was principal. My two elder sisters and some 10 cousins were schoolmates. All the other pupils were from the same Lutheran Church-German community. I had a strong self esteem. I was eager to learn.

We lived almost next to the school in a “teacherage”. This is like a “parsonage” except it was for teachers. It took just five minutes to get to school in the morning. I had “dinner” at home every day at noon.

Recess was always a highlight. Softball was the recess activity of choice. We always chose teams and the competition was friendly but fierce. Morning and afternoon recess times were often extended and the lunch hour was always an hour. By the time I was in the fifth grade we played softball games against public neighboring schools (but we were not allowed to play the Catholic school team only 4 miles away. We were German Lutherans. They were Czech Catholics and in those days we stayed apart.

The school usually provided one soft ball and one bat. The ball was supposed to last for the whole year so it was often restuffed, repacked, and restitched. Once I was the team hero because I got us a brand new softball. I scoured the congregation and amassed enough Post Toasties cereal box tops to get a free softball. I still remember the first day I passed it around to all my teammates. It was for us our one and only opportunity to feel a perfectly new softball.

It was also while I was at Zion that we got the first ever set of swings for the school. When we weren’t playing softball we rode the swings or played marbles (playing “for keeps” was forbidden and all “won” marbles needed to be returned at the end of the day.) Other games included Andy Over, Red Rover, and a little basketball. Strange as it now seems for one growing up in Texas, I do not recall us playing football though every Saturday had me listening to the Texas Longhorn games on the radio.

The school building and classrooms were simple. The toilets were plain old ‘outhouses”. When it was cold the older boys stoked the stove in the center of the classroom with coal from the coal shed. We boys also took turns pulling up fresh water from the well and putting it into central outdoor containers. We were supposed to bring our own drinking cups but most of us forgot them so we all shared a common cup.

There was no school bus. Those who lived within 3 miles walked. Some rode horses or came in horse drawn “buggies”. Others were brought by car, usually a Ford Model A or Model T.

A major fun day was the school picnic held near the end of the school term. It began the night before when “the men” spent the night making bar-b-que on the immense outdoor pit. The 400 pounds of wonderful meat, which was slowly bar-b-qued for 12 or more hours, was sold for the dinner. There was a concession stand and my memory is that I received an incredible large amount of money to spend, 2 cents. That was enough for 5 ice cream cones or 1 bottle of pop, 1 package of gum, 1 candy bar, 1 ice cream cone and 1 lemonade. It took a week to plan my budget!

At the picnic the church brass band (which my father directed) played from their specially designed bandstand. In election years political candidates were invited to shake hands and make short speeches. I always remember the one question all adults asked of the candidates, “What is your position on child labor laws?” The rumor was that congress was about to pass strict “Child Labor Laws”, one component of which would forbid farmer parents from having their children pick cotton or even milk cows twice a day. Everyone at the picnic was anti child labor laws.

Of course school was more than fun and games - and I’ll get to that in my next blog - but the point here is “I loved school – every day!”

Reflections Upon a Blessed and Exciting Life - No 4:Preschool

Some people, including son David, have an incredible ability to recall events of their early life – even prior to the age of 6 years. I have very few memories of my life prior to grade one.

Of course, I didn’t go to preschool (That was unthinkable in those days) and I doubt if there was even a single kindergarten in the Lutheran School system then even though it had some 2000 elementary schools.

I do remember our family growing. Seems like a new baby came every two years. I was born in December 1927 the third child with 2 older sisters, Erna, born in 1924 and Leona in 1926. Doris arrived in Feb. 1930, Mimi in March 1932, Harold in 1934 and Ethel in 1935. Mom must have had a couple of miscarriages for John and Darline were not born until 1942 and 1943. I have no memory of awaiting a new birth. The word “pregnancy” was never mentioned in mixed company.

Whenever it was time for the arrival of another sibling I was taken to Aunt Mattie Kurio’s to spend the night. (I wonder how old I was before I caught on that there would be a new sibling by the time I went back home.)

Each of us were loved and provided for by our parents. Mom just kept on breast feedomg, cooking, sewing, canning, cleaning and caring for the sick ones. Every night we had family prayers complete with Bible readings and a hymn.

Sunday (and I do mean every Sunday) found us all in church for which, to my constant dread, I was obligated to wear shoes. The rest of the time for 10 months of every year we were all barefooted.

Mentioning church helps me recall 2 embarrassments. It was the custom at Zion Lutheran Church for young children to sit together up front. (in pews arranged at right angles to the rest of the congregation). One Sunday I acted inappropriately. Mom left the two little ones sitting with her, marched to the front of the sanctuary and gathered me under her left arm to get me out of church – fast. Unfortunately one of my legs dangled somewhat freely and as she carried me out that foot hit the wainscot wall on the side of the church. So – the rat-a-tat-tat of my shoe against the wall followed us all the way out of church. By this time Mom was so upset that she waited no longer and gave me my well-deserved spanking just outside the church door. The sound of her slaps and my screams filled the sanctuary.

My dad, who was school principal and church organist, also served as church janitor and his duties included posting the hymn numbers on the hymn number boards on either side of the front altar. Once when I was about four I asked him the names of some of the hymns. I immediately recognized one (in German, of course, because all of our services then were in German). The next Sunday I proudly announced to a friend, “I can read the hymns! I opened the hymnal to the appropriate number and began acting as though I was reading; but my faking was exposed because I was looking at hymn 356 but was “reading” the words of hymn 282. My somewhat older friend, who could read, called my bluff!

One of my special preschool thrills was when I was asked to be ring bearer at a wedding. I would get some new clothes and lots of attention. Sometimes I carried the ring lightly, stitched to a pillow. Once it was inside a big white blossom. I remember being asked to kiss the little flower girl but I steadfastly refused to do so.

Early on I learned a skill that serves me to this day. Our whole family was often invited to people’s homes for birthdays, holidays, weddings, etc. The women and men were, of course, separated. After dinner the women conversed. The men played cards, especially a game called “Scott”. As the evening progressed and I got more and more sleepy, I learned to find the bedroom where all hats and coats of guests were laid. I shoved them aside, made myself a bit of space and slept peacefully. And to this day I can fall asleep in my chair, on a plane, during dull lectures or while watching Jeopardy or the San Diego Padres.

Reflections Upon a Blessed and Exciting Life - No 3:Grandfathers

I never met my maternal grandfather Doering. As he was born in 1885 and died in 1946, eleven years before I was born. He was born in Walburg, Germany, lived through the deaths of 4 younger sisters who died at the ages of 2, 3, 11 and 18. He came to America and settled in central Texas.

Soon after arriving he suffered a serious sunstroke and gave up farming. He quickly utilized his considerable entrepreneurial skills and in succession opened the Henry Doering Mercantile, the Walburg Post Office and the Walburg Bank. He apparently passed on his business skills to all his children who were successful in the grocery, banking, hotel, insurance, cotton ginning and farming businesses.

He was known as an intelligent, humble, devout Christian citizen. When he opened the post office the US postal service suggested the settlement be called “Doering” in his honor. He declined and opted instead for Walburg, the name of the town in Germany from which he had immigrated. He was an active, generously contributing and founding member of Zion Lutheran Church and School of Walburg.

My mother was only 14 when her father died, but in her life she exemplified his virtues of hard work, humility and Christian service; yet I remember very little of her even speaking to me of him.

I knew Grandpa John Kieschnick much better. He was born in 1864 near Brenham, Texas. His heritage was Wendish (Sorb), a distinct ethnic group with its own language, tragic history of persecution, poverty, losers at war that dates back to the first century of the Christian era. He married grandmother in 1886 and they were blessed with 7 children who survived infancy. My father was child number 5.

I have three strong images of Grandfather Kieschnick. One is from a period shortly before his death in 1941 when I was 13. My sister Leona and I were visiting, allegedly to help bring in the crop. Grandpa and we were in the sweltering bottomland of his farm. Two mules pulled the wagon while Grandpa walked along side limping all the way from the lasting effect of a broken leg suffered previously when mules ran wild and he was dragged from his wagon and severely fractured his leg. In the 100º temperature Grandpa limped, sweated profusely and resolutely picked ear after ear of corn and pitched them into the wagon. I looked at him with deep concern, greatly afraid that he was about to fatally succumb to it all right before my young eyes. But he made it back to the farmhouse and instructed me to unhitch the mules and take them down to the water tank (pond) so they could get their thirst quenched.

My second image of Grandpa Kieschnick is of him leading family devotions, a ritual which was for him absolutely essential every single day. I doubt if he every got beyond 6^th grade in school, but he read the German devotional material and prayers with such solemnity, quiet eloquence and conviction that I still hear his voice today.

My third memory relates to his funeral. After his death his embalmed body was returned to the parlor of his farmhouse. There church members, neighbors and friends all came to pay their respects. Then there was a brief pastor-led ritual after which his coffin was placed in the hearse for the trip to St. John Lutheran Church in Lincoln for the formal funeral.

To get from the Kieschnick farm home to the main road required going through several gates. At each of the 4 gates there stood one of his hired black laborers. Each one stood next to a sleek black horse and each black man held his hat solemnly across his chest, honoring the man for whom they all worked.

Grandpa combined his deep devotion to God and church with hard work and wise investments. Beginning with very little he departed having fulfilled his vision of being able to provide via inheritance a separate farm for each of his children.

Reflections Upon a Blessed and Exciting Life - No 2: Ancestry

I have never been into family genealogy. While there are, of course, family records I recall only a few isolated stories handed down from generations past and present.

There is the story of my maternal great-grandfather. He left Germany for Texas in 1847 with his wife and two daughters-, ne of them a newborn. While making the long journey across the oceans his wife died. When he arrived in Texas with his six year old and an infant the German Consul General “adopted” and raised his infant. He remarried and one of those children was my Grandmother Lena Doering.

Grandma Doering was a strong woman who raised 11 children, with her husband dying when the youngest was only 9 years old. The death of her husband came within one year of two big fires; one destroyed their barn and the other their large beautiful family home.

I’ll never forget I came home from school and Grandma was in the kitchen pealing apples for her famous apple pies. She very calmly told me of an incident that had happened just shortly before I had come home. A bullet had torn through the window in front of her and flew by her head into the wall behind her. She seemed completely unfazed and told me “I think it came from a .22 rifle. I guess there’s a hunter out there who should be more careful with where he aims”.

My great grandmother on my father’s side has a slightly different Texas legend. She lived “way out in the country” in Lee County and noticed that her chicken flock seemed to be diminishing faster than she figured it should. She decided that there might well be a nighttime raider of her chicken house. So that evening instead of going to bed she armed herself with a big flashlight and a hunting rifle.

Sure enough in the middle of the night the would-be thief arrived. She even recognized him as probably being one g of the poor recently freed from slavery farm hands who lived on their place. She confronted him, shone the light directly into his face and face-to-face. Quick to respond, the intruder stammered, “Oh I am lost. Can you direct me to the nearest road to Giddings (a town near-by)?”  She kept the light on his face and shouted “You (expletive deleted)! You know the way to Giddings as well as I do. Now get out of here and never return or I will use something stronger than this old flashlight on you!” Her chickens stopped disappearing.

I loved to visit my Grandmother Kieschnick-even though I knew I was expected to spend some time hoeing and weeding her very large garden which had a lot of many-thistled berry bushes. It was worth it because we would always leave with large bags of beans, radishes, peas, carrots, and onions. And at mealtime there was always a freshly baked berry pie.

She seems to always be at that wood-burning cook stove. I especially remember how she served dinner (always at noon.) Grandpa and us would all sit at the dining rooms table (or once in awhile at the kitchen table) and we would be served first. Then she would take food out to the porch where she served “the hired help”-which was always black. They sat at their own table and ate their own food –which while good was not quite up to what we were eating.  Yes, it was racism, paternalistic racism, but clearly blatant racism.

Reflections Upon a Blessed and Exciting Life No. 1: Birth

I entered this world from my mother/s womb on a cold night in the teacherage (home for parochial school teachers) outside of Walburg Texas on December 10,1927. Dr. Wiedemeyer was there with his black bag and my Aunt Mattie Kurio was there to assist. The delivery took place in the dining room of the house. That is because it was cold and that was the only room in the house which had a heater, a venerable wood-burning stove that had served for decades.

I was the first-born son and third child of Oscar and Lena Kieschnick. Oscar was known throughout the community as Teacher Kieschnick as he served as teacher for grades 4 through 8 and principal of Zion Lutheran School. Ancestry was not much talked about in my early years and what I know about my family heritage is limited. I know that my great-grandfather John Kieschnick was born in Malschwitz, Germany and came to American in 1854. He settled on a farm in New Ulm near Brenham, Texas. It was there that my father (one of ten children) was born in 1899. My grandmother Marie Friedrich was born in Kleinbautzen, Germany in 1868 and came to America in 1882. John and Marie settled in Lee County, worked very hard as successful farmers and had seven children.

My maternal grandfather, Henry Doering was born in Walburg, Hesse, Germany in1855. He came to the United States in 1880 and settled in Berry Creek in central Texas. He suffered a severe sun-stroke, gave up farming, opened the general store, post office and bank and is recognized as the founder of Walburg, Texas

My maternal grandmother is Lena Braun who was born in Fayette County Texas. She and Henry were married in 1882.My mother Lena was born in Walburg, one of eleven children

My father was born in 1899 and my mother in 1902. They were married in Walburg in 1923.

As was the custom I was baptized soon at the age of 8 days at Zion Lutheran Church by Pastor John Sieck, with an aunt, an uncle, a cousin and a Lutheran schoolteacher as sponsors. The notes my Mother recorded in my “baby book” are sparse but contain the note that I first said “papa, mama” when at ten months I heard my father deliver a sermon at church. One other note explains why I never really learned to swim and to this day am somewhat afraid of water. Mom wrote, “ He always enjoyed his baths till he was eight months old. Then we took him to the Gulf of Mexico at Galveston. From then on he never liked his bath-or running water.”