Category: Family

Who was the ‘Barton’ of the springs?

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barton springs 1882

Above, “Barton Springs,” A.M. Ramsey, 1882 oil painting, Austin History Center, Portal to Texas History

…”waters are as transparent as glass. Small objects can be seen at the bottom, 15 or 20 feet below the surface. The flow never changes. Prolonged rains, over a wide extent of the country, do not increase their volume, nor do the severest drouths diminish it.”

Frank Brown writing in Annals of Travis County and the City of Austin, (From the Earliest Times to the Close of 1875), Collection of Travis County Historical Commission, Portal to Texas History

New zipcode for this blogger. Jumped from 78204 to 78704, which means a whole batch of historical tidbits to master in order to understand home in South Austin. With an address on Barton Springs Road, finding out about Barton seems a good place to start.

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Sisters like two peas in a pod: Perhaps they shared a wedding dress as well

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agnes and william marmon

Above, William C. Marmon wed Agnes Zacharriah Autry in a double wedding ceremony in the Coker Church in 1899. Photograph courtesy of Virginia Heimer Ohlenbusch from Haunting the Graveyard: Unearthing the Story of the Coker Settlement

In the late 1800s, itinerant photographers wandered the Texas countryside, making a living talking hardworking farming families into the need to document their lives on their homesteads. The result was that neighbors often had their farmstead portraits taken during the same time period.

In Haunting the Graveyard: Unearthing the Story of the Coker Settlement, published by the Coker Cemetery Association in 2019, I organized the book by a combination of themes and timelines. This meant that I used most of the itinerant farm photos in a chapter describing the efforts of those making a living in the area of San Antonio known as Buttermilk Hill. But this also meant my favorite details in two of these remained unlinked in the book.

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Popularity Contest Results

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Above, 1912 New Year’s card from Chapter Seventeen of An Ostrich-Plumed Hat

You have been judging my posts, as always, for the past six months, picking and choosing whatever piques your interest. For several years, the focus here has been on travel, relying on extensive use of photographs. Well, 2020 certainly cut short this blogger’s boulevardier ways, so, instead, I have “gifted” you with my novel about the sensational 19teens’ tale of the doomed relationship of Hedda Burgemeister and Otto Koehler. More than thirty chapters of An Ostrich-Plumed Hat, and, Yes, She Shot Him Dead are now posted on this site.

an ostrich-plumed hat

The good news is that more of you have clicked on the Introduction and Chapter One than any other post since July. The flip side is less flattering; there was a steep drop off in readership by Chapter Two. Numerous chapters ranked in the top dozen of this biannual roundup, but, for the sake of variety and not to encourage skipping around in the book the way I read Moby Dick in high school – every fifth chapter (Did I miss much?), I am omitting them from the list. Am hoping for some more feedback from you, my beta readers, as this release continues.

Beyond that, you seem to still appreciate my efforts at populating Brackenridge Park with ghosts, railing about whatever in the world is happening to Alamo Plaza and spinning tales from vagabond times. And perhaps you are looking for miracles ahead in 2021.

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