1996 #2 - Austin Genealogical Society

AGS Quarterlv Volume XXXVII. No. 2 (June 1996) Ancestor Listina Paaes Austin. TX
REFLECTIONS OF MY EARLY YEARS
By: Ralph L. Tschirhart
Submitted by: Anna Louise Tschirhart Hans and Harold B. Hans,Sr.
father, Ralph L. Tschirhart (19081993) in an old ledger which is in the possession of Teresa
Tschirhart Hackebeil. his granddaughter. Teresa had given him the ledger and asked him to record memories of his early years.
In 1933. Eloise BiDDert. a friend of the familv. tv~ed the folldna unedited notes.
My mother was Cecilia Huesser. She was lucky she received a grammar school education. She
could write real good in German and English. She was a devout person, hard working. She always sang
or whistled when she worked. She worked a long time for Mr. & ME. L.M. Tondre for $8.00 a month,
seven days a week. She also worked as a house maid for the Howards in Del Rio, Texas. Her mother
was also a devoted person. She received daily Communion as long as she was able to go to church. My
mother had a big garden and all kinds of fruit trees and lots of flowers. We had fresh lettuce almost all
the year round. The biggest pleasure my mother had was doing something for her family. She milked
the cow and made a pound of butter almost every day. I would churn it sometimes. I carried the stove
wood into the house, and a Mexican would chop it and the same Mexican would spade the garden.
When we killed (pig) in the wintertime we had fresh sausage, bacon, kutla, head cheese, liver sausage,
and pickled pigs feet. Ah! how good we ate all the time! She cooked a soup every day my father wanted
a bowl of soup before dinner every day. And we had meat every day at dinner and supper, except on
Friday. We usually had beans, noodles, and prunes or peaches and sometimes we had cheese
enchiladas.
My mother was always happy, she loved to work, and she would do anything for us. She would
cook me pancakes at 3:OO o'clock in the afternoon.
Her mother became senile in her later years and she stayed at our house and my mother took
care of her for eleven years, missing one nite (sic) when my father was in the hospital; then my wife
stayed with her. When my Grandma died my mother was so glad that she had been able to take care of
her.
I never will forget the sermon Father Lenzen had at her (my mother's) burial. He said if he could
canonize a saint this would be the person he would canonize. It was a wonderful feeling, she was a great
person. (She died of breast cancer).
My father was Ed. A. Tschirhart. He was a blacksmith, and a hard working one. He was born on
his daddy's farm east of Castroville and had had 2 years of school. They had to work on the farm and as
he was the oldest, he had to stay home most of the time. When he was eighteen years old he left home
and went to Quihi to learn the blacksmith and wheelwright trade from an old German. His name was
Shrader. He borrowed $81.00 from his father to pay for his room and board. It was $9.00 a month and
he never spent a nickel outside of his room and board. He stayed at Henry Leossburg family and never
went no other place but to the blacksmith shop for nine months. He learned to temper steel, read well,
and was an excellent horse shoer. Also build (sic) new wheels for buggies and wagons. He always had
a helper in the shop and when the canal was build (sic) he would shoe 18 to 20 horses and mules in 1
day. Fitted and put 4 shoes on a horse for $1.00 a head. But he made money in those days because he
build (sic) a new house for his bride, and bought 100 acres of land in the first few years of his blacksmith
work.
' "V Imtki-evening he would comb home and lay on the front porch too tired to eat but in a little while
he would come in and.eat his supper by kerosene lights, of course. After 25 years at his work, he retired
and went back to his first love, farming, which:he did for several 'years. His shop was next to the saloon
and when he was finished shoeing a horse or some other work, they would get what was called a growler,
which was a little tin bucket of beer. It cost 15 cents and the bucket was passed around and I got a
swallow once in awhile, and it was so good.
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.I, :. . ~ , .: .. . .
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; '::.: He:died wherr.he'was.68 years.oldi If,he.had the medicine we have today, he could have lived a 0
long time'yet. He died with Uric Acid.(Kidney failure). I have a trace of it but Zyloprim tablets take care
of it.
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