A few years ago, Margie’s father, David Pacey, started to paint again after not doing so for many years. That Christmas he gave me a painting he made of the exterior of The Rock Church (the old St. Olaf’s Lutheran Church) in Bosque County (first picture). He used a photograph I’d taken to make that …
David Mighell Pacey+ (January 29, 1952 – June 20, 2019) Read More »
The original site of Dime Box (now Old Dime Box) is on SH 21, which roughly follows the path of the Old San Antonio Road through Lee County. After the Southern Pacific ran tracks a few miles to the southeast in 1913, most folks eventually moved out to the tracks, leading to the establishment of …
The Southern Pacific (indirectly) moved Dime Box… Read More »
When the CBS crew was shown to the SPJST Hall in Dime Box to set up for the kickoff of the 1944 March of Dimes campaign, they quickly realized they had a problem. The floor of the stage was wooden, and the acoustics just wouldn’t do for a live radio broadcast. Sometimes you just have …
How Quilts Saved the March of Dimes Broadcast in Dime Box, Texas Read More »
Since my recent post about Dime Box and the 1944 March of Dimes campaign kickoff, I’ve learned from Ray Spitzenberger (who remembers the big day) that at the time, the Dime Box Postmaster’s name was “Mr. Stamps” and that (of course) the media made much of that interesting fact. I haven’t seen that mentioned in any …
Welcome to Dime Box, Texas – Postmaster: Mr. Stamps Read More »
The population of Dime Box, Texas has remained fairly consistent over the last hundred years, peaking at around five hundred in the Roaring Twenties. If you’re driving up what used to be the Old San Antonio Road (now SH 21), you’ll even miss the town by about three miles, though you will drive right through …
How a Mailbox Full of Dimes from Dime Box, Texas Ended Up in the White House Read More »
I will return to our regularly scheduled programming soon – things are a bit hectic around here; Margie’s father is visiting us and has had to be hospitalized unexpectedly. Over the weekend, we were talking with the folks we were staying with, and the wife told us a story about her encounter with her neighbor’s …
My children’s great-grandfather, Leonard Groeschel, was the first person I knew who was from Serbin. It was always interesting to hear him tell stories of his childhood about going to the store in town (I tried to imagine what it might have looked like), etc. Because of my conversations with him, I learned about “Texas …
When it comes to the study of history, generalization is (in general) a problem. (See what I did there?) That being said, it’s difficult to begin the study of any historical event without starting with generalities. One such generality is “the Wends came to Texas to preserve their language and culture.” In general, that is …
To Generalize or Not To Generalize, That is the Question Read More »
The largest group of Wends came to Texas in 1854 on the Ben Nevis, but they weren’t the first (or last) Wends to emigrate. Two smaller groups arrived in 1849 and 1853, and others came after the War Between the States and into the twentieth Century. Frank Wissel’s great-grandfather, Andreas Mattijetz, was six years old …
It’s early 1855. You are one of the fortunate ones who survived the two-month trip across the Atlantic in the Ben Nevis. The brutal winter will, in a few months, give way to Spring. Unfortunately, though, your husband was one of the seventy-some souls who perished en route to Galveston. Now that you’re in Texas, …
“And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone…” Read More »