Alamo

From about 1850 on, there was a doctor-surgeon of such legendary skills practicing his trade in South Texas that his patients often traveled hundreds of miles; Doctor Ferdinand Ludwig von Herff, who dropped the aristocratic ‘von’ after coming to Texas. He arrived as part of a circle of young idealists called the “Forty”, who planned a utopian commune along the ideas espoused by social critics of the time. (Interesting and experimental communes sprouted like mushrooms all during the early 19^th century. Few lasted longer than the 1960s variety.)

Like the 1960s variety, Herff’s companions were students or recent graduates. Hermann Spiess had already toured through the United States and Texas, but when Count Castell, of the Mainzer Adelsverein heard of their intentions, he offered funding if they would establish it on the Verein land-grant in Texas instead, where John O. Meusebach, the commissioner of the Verein was about to negotiate a peace treaty with the Penateka Comanche. In mid-summer of 1847 the “Forty” arrived in Texas, led by Herff, Spiess and Gustav Schleicher, a trained engineer who would eventually oversee building of the rail system throughout Texas. They had brought along a huge train of baggage, supplies and equipment; seeds and grapevines, mill machinery, a small cannon, many dogs, one woman – a cook/housekeeper named Julie Herf (no relation), Doctor Herff’s collection of surgical impedimenta, and many barrels of whiskey. By fall, they had all this and a herd of cattle at their town-site, which they named Bettina, near present-day Castell. They built a long building to use as a barracks and common-room, planted crops and settled in to live their dream of communal living close to the land; Ferdinand and Hermann’s Excellent Frontier Adventure.

They were long on ideals and enthusiasm, but short on relish for back-breaking agricultural labor. It didn’t last beyond a year, but in that time, Doctor Herff performed a single amazing feat of surgery. A Comanche warrior with an advanced case of cataracts appeared, asking to be healed. They did not dare turn the man away. Dr. Herff had already been treating various Indians who presented themselves, and would eventually become fairly fluent in the Comanche and Apache dialects … and he had brought the latest in ophthalmologic instruments with him.

They would use ether to anesthetize the patient, and Doctor Herff would have to have sufficient light. Since ether was flammable, he would have to operate outdoors. A tidy man, he insisted on it being a clear, dust-free, windless and insect-free day, and boiling the water used to irrigate the eyes of his patient. A dozen commune members stood by armed with palm-leaf fans to keep flies away while Dr. Herff set to work, probably knowing that this was an operation that could not be botched. Even if there was a peace treaty in force, an unhappy Comanche would not stop at a letter of complaint.

Fortunately the primitive surgery was successful, the patient ecstatic at being able to see well again. He departed, promising the doctor the most generous reward at his command – a woman. One can imagine a great deal of jollity at Dr. Herff’s expense from the other young men of the “Forty”. Three months later, the Comanche reappeared with a young Mexican girl in tow, and handed her over to Dr. Herff, who put her in the care of the only other woman in Bettina, the housekeeper/cook. The girl’s name was Lena, or Lina; she was never able to recall enough about her original family to return to them. Eventually, she married Hermann Spiess. Dr. Herff practiced medicine tirelessly for the next sixty years, establishing San Antonio’s first hospital and several medical associations, and the town of Boerne. Generally, if there is a surgical “first” anywhere in Texas during the last half of the 19^th century, he was the surgeon responsible.

Dr. Herff appears briefly in my trilogy of novels about the German settlers in frontier Texas – the Adelsverein Trilogy, and has somewhat more presence in my latest released book, The Quivera Trail, which rolled out in November, 2013. He is the family doctor to an extended family of prosperous German settlers in San Antonio, in the 1870s – and performs one of his miracle surgeries at the climax of that book. There are two historical markers related to him – one on the Riverwalk near the site of his San Antonio residence, and one on the top of a hill near his summer home in Boerne, which became the summer highland retreat of wealthy San Antonio residents later in the 19^th century.

What happens when Mrs. Gaskell meets Zane Grey?

The Quivera Trail is intended as a sequel to the Adelsverein Trilogy, as picks up in 1875, with Dolph Becker courting and marrying a young Englishwoman, Isobel Lindsay-Groves. Isobel has several problems, the first of them being a domineering and cruelly judgmental mother and the second that she has made a dreadful hash of her debut year and failed to marry – marry well, or marry anyone at all. She is plump, socially inept, loves dogs and horses, and wishes wistfully for a quiet and modest country life. Dolph Becker is the answer to a prayer, as he offers all that … but the price for escape from a gilded world of privilege and the casual malice of her mother and Society … is to marry a man she barely knows, and follow him to Texas.

Accompanying Isobel on the journey to her new home in Texas is Jane Goodacre, her personal maid and confidant. Jane, the daughter of a small country shop-keeper, also has ambitions – and talents that she hardly suspects. The limitations and expectations for a young working-class woman in Victorian England weigh very heavily on Jane, although she does not realize that … until she and her lady mistress arrive in Texas.

The Quivera Trail is now available on Amazon, and on Barnes & Noble, and in Kindle and Nook versions. The print version is also available autographed, directly from my website at www.celiahayes.com.

I will give away one print copy of the first book in the Adelsverein family saga; Daughter of Texas to a commenter.  

Before the Alamo … Before the legends were made…

On the day that she was twelve years old, Margaret Becker came to Texas with her parents and her younger brothers. The witch-woman looked at her hands, and foretold her future; two husbands, a large house, many friends, joy, sorrow and love.

The witch woman would not say what she saw for Margaret’s younger brothers, Rudi and Carl – for Texas was a Mexican colony. Before the Becker children were full-grown, the war for Texas independence would come upon them all and show no mercy.

During her life, she would observe and participate in great events. She would meet and pass her own judgment on great men and lesser men as well; a loyal friend, able political hostess . . .  and at the end, a survivor and witness. But in all of her life, there would be only one man who would ever hold – and break – her heart