Grandma and Grandpa Henry Hoelting

The Hoelting-Brockman granary still standing
on the Hoelting homestead in 2008


HENRY AND ELIZABETH SCHROER HOELTING MOVE TO NAZARETH, TEXAS

Henry and Elizabeth, my paternal grandparents, farmed near St. Stephens in Nuckolls County, Nebraska, until March 1906, when Henry moved to Nazareth, Texas. From 1906 to 1908, my Grandpa Hoelting made several trips by train back to Lawrence, Nebraska to visit his wife and children, his mother, and other relatives.

In 1906, with financial help from his father-in-law, Herman Schroer, he purchased a half section of land for $2.50 per acre on the east side of the Nazareth-Hart road approximately two miles south of Nazareth, Texas. He then moved without his family to Nazareth and lived with the Louis Huseman family during the time it took him, with the help of other early settlers, to build a sixteen-by-thirty-two-foot granary and windmill on the properly. The granary was built on two-by-eight-foot planks in a pier-and-beam construction with a wooden floor and wooden shingles. It had a six-foot-high window opening in the north and south bins for shoveling grain and an east and a west door in the middle room.

In early 1907, Grandpa moved into the granary with his brother-in-law Frank (“Page”) Brockman, his sister Phine Hoelting Brockman, and their children, Josephine (“Josie”), George, and Laurence (“Lun”).

In 1908, the Brockmans finished building and moved into their new house a mile north of the Hoelting granary. For several months, Grandpa Hoelting lived in the granary by himself.

In June of 1908, his wife Elizabeth and their four children—Frank, Alois, Dora, and Edward—arrived in Tulia, Texas on a train from Lawrence, Nebraska. Edward, the youngest child, was six months old. They brought all of their belongings with them, including a team of horses, harness, three milk cows, a box wagon, and any clothing they might need in Texas. Grandpa and Page Brockman met the train after riding saddle horses to Tulia. Lizzie told the family often that as the train entered the Tulia station, Dora spotted her father, Henry, on the platform. She immediately pointed and shouted excitedly, “There’s our papa! There’s our papa!” In Tulia, the wagon, which had been disassembled for the train trip, was reassembled, belongings loaded in it, horses harnessed and hitched to the wagon, and Henry and Elizabeth and the four kids made the 25-mile trek across the prairie to their new home with Grandpa’s saddle horse tied to the back of the wagon and Page driving the milk cows.

Henry and Elizabeth would go on to have five more children: Wilfred, Irene, Stella (later Sister Norbert), Gregory, and Norbert. Elizabeth died in 1933, when the youngest child, Norbert (my dad), was thirteen years old.

For three years, while they built their house, the family lived in the granary with no running water, no kitchen—not even a sink or drain—no fan or air conditioning, no electricity, and no windows other than the small window in each bin for shoveling grain.

In later years, Henry and Lizzie would seldom complain about the sacrifices and hardships of living in the granary. They did tell that during the summer months, hordes of millers would get inside through any opening in the granary. This forced them to close their only windows, making it very hot. Lizzie enjoyed telling the younger Hoelting children about how she could step out of her door and see oceans of grass in every direction with large herds of grazing animals. Their biggest and almost constant fear was of prairie fires, because when they would come upon your home, there was no way to stop them and nowhere to run. On many nights, they would smell smoke from distant prairie fires or see the fires off in the far distance. Frank Hoelting, their oldest son, commented on how dirty it would get inside when the wind blew. He also said the high winds would shake the granary and blow completely through it.

Finally, in 1911, the new house was completed. The Hoelting family moved out of the granary and offered it as a temporary home to Frank and Emma Schroer Venhaus, who had just moved from Lawrence, Nebraska after purchasing land one mile south of the Hoelting home. The Venhaus family—Frank, Emma, and their children, Emma, Agnes, and Albert—then lived in the granary for a year.

In 1912, the Venhauses moved to their newly completed house and Grandpa Henry was finally able to use the granary to store grain. He would plant, graze, and thrash sudan grass, then shovel the seed into the south bin. In April, when the price rose, he shoveled the sudan seed into a box wagon and hauled it to the elevator in Hart, Texas. He used the granary north compartment for milo, kaffir corn, or hegari. He would usually grind this feed for cattle or hogs. The center compartment was used for minerals, cake, salt, and sacked feed. He kept a grinder next to the granary to grind feed through the east door into the center compartment. Each time they ground feed, his sons were required to restack the sacks of feed, cake, and salt blocks in front of the west door.

Henry's farming and ranching business grew, and he had a set of scales installed across the road from the house. This allowed him to buy, sell, or trade grain, cattle, horses, mules, or hogs. My father, Nub Hoelting, later said that he and his brothers seemed to shovel something into or out of the granary every day. My uncle Edward Hoelting once commented that Henry made more money before breakfast trading livestock and grain than most farmers made in a week. Edward also complained that as soon as he would get a team of mules broke to pull, Henry would trade them for two or three pairs that needed to be broke. Henry had a standing contract to sell as many broke mules as he could supply to a broker, who would pick them up at Hart and ship them by rail to East Texas cotton farmers.

While the area may have been totally undeveloped—the nearest railroad available to take grain and cattle to market was in Tulia, 20 miles away—at least the neighbors were likable: Elizabeth's father, Herman Sr., purchased an adjoining half-section. Their house — albeit with a few alterations — still stands.

Nazareth, the village near their farm, had a grocery store, a post office, a small school, and the Holy Family Catholic Church. As was typical of most early German settlers in the area, the family spoke only German. Both German and English were taught for a few years in the small school, but in time, English became the language of choice in the educational system. Thus, the younger Hoelting children spoke very little German.

All of the Texas-born children were delivered by a midwife, Mrs. Wilhelmina Their, who charged $5.00 per delivery. The family's first car, a 1917 Overland, lasted just two years; then it was back "over land" by horse and buggy until 1931.

Elizabeth had no easy life, raising nine children without the help of modern conveniences, carrying water from the well, washing clothes by hand, and raising vegetables in her garden. But she traveled by train back to Nebraska to visit friends and relatives several times, and she was a happy person. Liz loved to sing, and she and Henry enjoyed their music parties and card games. In the early 1900s, they purchased a new player piano that gave them and their family much enjoyment.

After several years, Henry and Elizabeth purchased Herman Schroer's half-section for $5.00 per acre. Soon afterward, Henry became keenly interested in the cattle business, eventually managing enough success to purchase additional land.

When he was not busy tending to his cattle, hogs, and farming, Henry pursued his other love in life: learning. Though he had only a fourth-grade education, Henry was very knowledgeable in geography and history, perhaps due to the fact that he had a photographic memory. A civic-minded man, he served on numerous local boards and earned the nickname "Bryan" because of his interest in politics and his staunch support of William Jennings Bryan.

An avid reader, Henry devoured any newspaper he could find from cover to cover. Most nights, you could find him reading in his rocker until he fell asleep. Often, he remained there until the wee hours, long after the paper had slid out of his arms and onto the floor. Among his other favorite sources of information were the National Geographic and the sundry market reports. Anyone available knew to be prepared at all times to list the market reports as delivered by the radio.

Henry never met a stranger. He loved to visit with anyone about any topic, especially national politics, ranching, Texas, family, and the national debt.

Until a week before his death in 1948, Henry worked on his farm and tended to his livestock.

Because she died before my birth, I never knew my Grandma Elizabeth Schroer Hoelting. She was a healthy woman until the 1919 flu epidemic, which ravaged the entire family. Being a dedicated wife and mother, Liz found the will to care for her family anyway. As a result of her devotion to duty, she contracted a heart condition. In 1933, Liz became very ill and passed away in the hospital in Hereford.

While life for the early Texas Hoeltings was hard, with many tribulations and sacrifices, it was also fortified with family and community celebrations, which included singing, dancing, card-playing, home brew, and, on occasion, moonshine whiskey.