Koeltzow Family in Grimes County (Part two)

Young Otto Koeltzow writes that “our harvest at Anderson was good—nine bales of cotton and fine corn. Older brother Paul was old enough to plow, and so father bought a second yoke of oxen for $50 and rented more land. This required us to move farther from town. It was a four mile walk to school in good and bad weather, but we didn’t mind for there were several school boys along the road and we had good times together.

“But misfortune continued to dog us. When I was 11, father was struck down with a serious illness called the Texas Slow Fever. Since this happened during the busy crop season, I had to plow with his oxen. I was not yet tall enough to reach the handles, and Paul had to lower them for me. My first rows were far from straight, but I soon learned to plow as well as anyone. Father finally recovered, and while we made fair crops that season we decided to move onto so-called ‘new ground’ that was covered with timber which had to be cleared off, which explained the low rental.”

Koeltzow continues to tell that when the region was first settled, Texans mostly established plantations on the prairies which were easy to work with slave labor. It was about 1882 when the Germans arrived in Texas that the woodlands were opened up for farming. These thrifty, hard-working people, seeking new farm lands, were permitted by the owner to clear up the timbers. Despite tree stumps hindering farming the land soon made for good farming. Often stumps were so prevalent farming was done with hoes.

Young Otto continued: “The older settlers had wagons, but the poverty-stricken Germans had to haul grain and wood with oxen and crude sleds built from local lumber. We were in Texas four years before we could afford a wagon. Father paid $20 for the chassis and built the frame and bed from native lumber. While the wagon made our work somewhat easier, our lot like all the pioneer families around us, was hard. All the family worked - Father, Paul, and I did the plowing, and mother and the younger children chopped the cotton and corn.

At harvest we were in the field from dawn until dark picking cotton and pulling corn. There seemed to be little time for rest for men and women, boys and girls of all ages. Wood had to be cut for the entire year; new land had to be cleared; then it was time to start the field work for the new crops.

“During 1889 we worked 2-acres of cotton and 12 acres in corn with two yoke of oxen and we had all we could handle. We made a fair crop that year--seven bales of cotton at nine cents per pound, but after paying the land rent, blacksmith bill, church salary, and doctor bills, the money was just about all gone. But we had plenty to eat. Potatoes and cabbages grew well in the new land. We butchered five hogs and had plenty of cornmeal and eggs. We could not afford sugar, but syrup from sorghum cane was cooked in large vats and stored in jars and crocks. Some of the cabbage was chopped up for kraut, and it used to be said that you could always tell where a German lived because each household invariably had a barrel of sauerkraut on the porch. And we generally had a barrel of home-made wine in the smoke house made from the big mustang grapes that grew wild in the woods.”

Koeltzow Biography and Sandbar to be continued by Betty Dunn, Two Rivers Heritage Foundation visit www.tworiversheritagefoundation.org for more info and membership.