Caspar Real Homestead

The small log cabin known as the "Little House"

This beautiful Victorian-era house, located on Lower Turtle Creek Road, is the Caspar Real homestead. Built by Caspar and Emilie Schreiner Real in the 1870s, it is one of the oldest homes in Kerr County and has been continuously owned and occupied by the same family. The fifth generation of Reals now own and live in it. Their grandchildren represent the seventh generation to enjoy this house.

The small barn between the house and garage encloses a log cabin thought to be the older of the two cabins.

Born near Dusseldorf, Germany, in 1824, Caspar Real came to Texas from Alsace in 1848, landing at Indianola. From there he moved to Bexar County and worked as a carpenter, then became a rancher, raising sheep and cattle along Martinez Creek. He had heard of the springs and creeks of the Hill Country, so when a severe drought arrived in 1857 he moved his cattle and sheep up the Guadalupe and settled by a spring on Turtle Creek. It is said he brought the first sheep to Kerr County and some of the first Hereford cattle.

There are two log cabins on the property, one of which is thought to be the first home of Caspar and Emilie before they built this two-story home. Both cabins are still in use today, one as a guest house, the other as a storage building. Family tradition says the one being used as a storage building was first used by the men who tended the livestock and is most likely the oldest of the three buildings.

Caspar Real served in several public offices, including county treasurer 1864-65, tax assessor and collector 1866-69, cattle inspector 1871-72, sheep inspector 1879, county commissioner 1883-85. He died in 1893. Emilie followed in 1918. They are buried together in the family cemetery not far from the home they built.

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If you have a home more than 50 years old that you would like me to  research and write about, please contact me at dgaudier@gmail.com  This address is only for blog mail and is checked infrequently.

Remembering Clarabelle Snodgrass

Today we buried Clarabelle Barton Snodgrass in a beautiful ceremony that honored a life well lived.  She was 102 when she passed away this past Monday, February 29, 2016.  Clarabelle was the Queen of Kerr County History.  A lifelong resident of Kerr County, Texas, she had lost most of her vision and much of her hearing, but her mind was sharp until the very end. It seemed liked she remembered EVERYTHING about Kerr County.  We are all the richer because of Clarabelle. She was responsible for saving the old Tivy School and the Schreiner Chapel of the First Presbyterian Church as well as editing the Kerr County Album and writing a memoir. Most of the 80+ historical markers in Kerr County are due to her unceasing work.  I now serve as the marker chair for the Kerr County Historical Commission. I hope I can be half as successful as she in marking and saving our history.

Turtle Creek Cemetery where her parents are buried

She was born in Kerrville in a house on Water Street, on October 13, 1913, and spent her early years along Turtle Creek. After she and Ross Snodgrass married, they moved to the Divide and began ranching. They later moved permanently off the Divide and into Kerrville where she spent the last decades of her life.

I've only know Clarabelle a few years, just since 2010. I talked with her on occasion about some of my research.  She was always supportive, and usually confirmed what I had "discovered".

This past October the Friends of the Kerr County Historical Commission asked her to speak on "102 years of Kerr County Memories" focusing mostly on Turtle Creek and the Divide.  I am so glad we did this.  It turned out to be her last public appearance. The photos here are from that talk.

Since her husband, Ross, lived to be 107, I guess we thought she'd be around forever--or at least another few years. There are a few more things I'd like to know. Those questions will have to wait until we meet on the other side.

The last time I talked to her she told me that she wanted to live long enough to write a book about the Divide. Some of us should take that on in her memory.  Anyone?

Bushwhack Creek

Turtle Creek rises about 18 miles southwest of Kerrville and feeds into the Guadalupe south of the airport.  One of its major tributaries is Bushwhack Creek, whose name comes from an event during the Civil War in 1862.
When the war broke out, many Germans, who were only recently arrived, felt loyal to their new country, and did not support slavery.  Major Frederick "Fritz" Tegener and others were part of a Union Loyal League, organized in 1861with several hundred male unionists.
In 1862 Tegener received information that the Hill Country counties of Gillespie, Kendall, Kerr, Edwards, and Kimble were considered to be in open rebellion against the Confederacy and that Confederate forces were en route to the area.  Tegener was appointed leader of a group of Unionists that attempted to make their way to Mexico.  About 68 men organized and camped along a tributary of Turtle Creek while waiting for others to join them.  They camped several days, then started their fatal march to Mexico.  They were ambushed and massacred by a group of Confederate soldiers on the banks of the Nueces River. The monument "Treue der Union" in Comfort commemorates this event.

The above-mentioned tributary of Turtle Creek is Bushwhack Creek.  This meeting point, which is on a private ranch, deserves an historical marker. 

The Boys from Turtle Creek

There were two young men from the Turtle Creek community who lost their lives in World War I.
They are Robert Emerson Spicer and Leonard Miles Denton.

Leonard Miles Denton was born August 25, 1896, in Kerr County to Benjamin Franklin Denton Jr. and Louisiana "Annie" Sarah Norwood Denton.  He died of pneumonia April 15, 1918, at Camp Bowie, Tarrant County, and is buried in Turtle Creek Cemetery.
This lengthy obituary appeared in the Kerrville Mountain Sun on April 26, 1918:

 Kerr County Soldier dies at Camp Bowie.
Kerr County is sad today.  Yesterday was laid to rest one of her soldier sons; a young, red-blooded American who left last September to give his life for his country, has made the sacrifice.
Private Leonard Denton, Co. I, 141st Infantry, died Monday afternoon at 4:40 o'clock in the Base Hospital at Camp Bowie, a victim of pneumonia.
The young man was ill only a few days, ad his father, B. F. Denton, left last week for Fort Worth in response to a message informing him of his son's illness.  His condition seemed to gradually grow worse until the end came Monday afternoon.
The remains, accompanied by the father, a brother, Claud Denton, of Midland, and a military escort, arrived on the Wednesday evening train and were met by a large group of relatives and friends.
The remains were laid to rest in the Turtle Creek Cemetery Thursday afternoon.  The funeral was one of the largest attended ever held in the county, showing he esteem in which the young soldier was held by his home people, and their appreciation of his noble sacrifice.
Rev. D. B. South, pastor of the Kerrville Baptist Church, in tender words of sympathy and comfort conducted the service at the [unclear].
Young Denton was just reaching manhood and was one of the first to volunteer last summer when Captain Seeber organized the old Company D, First Texas Infantry, which was merged with another company at Camp Bowie some time ago and named Co. I, 141st Infantry.  It is peculiarly sad that a young man so patriotic should not be permitted to get into action; but he had nevertheless given his life in his country's cause, and to the mourning ones we would remind that He who doeth all things well, makes no mistakes.  The human link snapped asunder on earth is forged anew in Heaven.  It is true when beautiful youth is gone and much of life remains; hence the dear one's eyes are closed to all earthy trials.  In his springtime of enthusiasm and tenderness, ere the sunshine of hope and joy was extinguished, he passed to the glorious beyond.
No bronze or marble shaft, no splendor of ancient or modern tombs and no play of immortal genius can adorn the memory of such manly young men.  Their lives, their deeds, their influences, living or dead, and their pure aspirations are the monuments that will keep their names burning in the home and hearts of kindred and brethren, while the silence of death draps[sic] and chills us at this moment, memories sweet and precious come crowding in.
"How sweet a life was his; how sweet a death;
Living to wing with mirth the merry hours,
Or with his genial tales the heart to cheer.
Dying to leave a memory like the heath
Of summer, full of sunshine and flowers.
A grief and gladness in the atmosphere."
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Robert Emerson Spicer was born May 23, 1890, in Kerrville to James and Ruth Nelson Spicer.  He was English, she Canadian. He died October 9, 1918, in France and is buried at Oise-Aisne Cemetery.

Pictured here is his mother who participated in the U.S. World War I Mothers' Pilgrimage in 1930. This was a federally funded program to allow mothers to visit the graves of their sons and to see the battlefields where they died. She went to France to visit the grave of her son for the first and only time.

Meta Paul's Boarding House

This Victorian house on Bushwhack Creek in the Upper Turtle Creek community originally was at 941 Main Street in Kerrville, about where the Catholic school gym parking lot is today.
Built about 1890 for Green and Mollie Coleman, it was moved in 1985 to a rural property where it remains today.   We believe the  black and white photo below, which shows the house in rear view, was taken just before the Armistice Day parade in 1919. 

Here is the house today from a similar view.

This house locally is known as Meta Paul's Boarding House.
Mrs. Paul was the daughter of Henry Henke.  In 1922 her huband, Elo Wied, an auto mechanic in Gonzales, died when a car he was working on fell on him.  At the age of 27 she was now a widow with three young children to support somehow.  She moved back to Kerrville where her father bought the house next door and helped her set up a boarding house.  She later married Henry Paul, and while the marriage ended in divorce in a few years, she was ever after known as Meta Paul.
She was well-known for her excellent cooking, especially her cream puffs. There were wait lists for her two lunch seatings every day.

This house is one of the few remaining houses in Kerr County with any connection to Admiral Chester Nimitz.  Nimitz, who grew up in Kerrville, was first cousin to Meta Paul and visited this house.

This house is my home.  We feel honored to be the caretakers of this very special house.

Turtle Creek School

School's out for our family, so I thought I would share a couple of photos from the old one-room Turtle Creek School.  The board and batten school building is located on Upper Turtle Creek Road some eight miles south of Kerrville.

This is the second Turtle Creek school.  The original school opened in 1869 in an old windowless log cabin.  This larger building was erected in the mid-1880s. In 1900 it was expanded and a stage added. Students attended through 7th grade, then went to Kerrville. Classes were held here until 1958 at which time the trustees voted to close the school and send all the students to Kerrville.

The school sits on a bluff above Turtle Creek. The water source for many years was a spring at the base of the bluff.  Boys were assigned the task of climbing down to collect water in buckets for the students' use during the day.

For many decades it was only public building in the community, so was used for social events, church services, and elections.  It served as a voting place for about 120 years. Today it continues to serve as a community center.

One group that has met here on occasion is Turtle Creek Sewing Circle, which was organized in 1926 and is thought to be the oldest social club in Kerr County.