Comfort, Texas History: West Curr Current Article on Inguenhett Family
July 18th, 2008 categories: Comfort Community News, Views & Faces
What a Great Article! on the Ingenhuett Family and Comfort, Texas:
Original Article: http://www.wkcurrent.com/default.asp?sourceid=&smenu=71&twindow=Default&mad=No&sdetail=1536&wpage=&skeyword=&sidate=&ccat=&ccatm=&restate=&restatus=&reoption=&retype=&repmin=&repmax=&rebed=&rebath=&subname=&pform=&sc=1107&hn=wkcurrent&he=.com
As Ingenhuetts’ fortunes fluctuate, family pride is rock solid
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| Four generations of the storied Ingenhuett family of Comfort gather for a family portrait in 1921. At far right is Peter Joseph Ingenhuett (1833-1923), an early pioneer who sailed from Germany to Texas in 1852, paving the way for his kinfolk. His parents, Hubert and Gertrude, and brothers Thomas and Martin, followed in 1854, settling in Kerr County, west of Cypress Creek. Pictured also, from left, are grandson Peter Ingenhuett II, and, center, Peter Joseph’s son, Paul, called “Papa,” holding Peter II’s baby, Warren, |
EDITOR’S NOTE — This is the 127th of a series of articles marking Kerr County’s sesquicentennial.
By Irene Van Winkle
West Kerr Current
A major piece of Comfort’s history faded when the old Ingenhuett store on High Street was ravaged by fire on March 15, 2006. Store owner James Krauter, whose wife, Gladys, was an Ingenhuett descendant, said that when he heard from his son that the building was burning, he couldn’t bear to watch.
James said the cause was never determined by state arson investigators, but the cost of rebuilding was prohibitively high. It stands like a gaping wound amidst many other nearly-pristine architectural treasures along the block.
The block on High Street was called “the best example of German Architecture in Texas,” according to “Geometry in Architecture: Texas Buildings Yesterday and Today,” by Clovis Heimsath. All the buildings owned by the Ingenhuett family in Comfort were designed by noted architect, Alfred Giles.
Another descendant, Roy Perkins III, lives in his grandparents’ home around the corner and said he is saddened daily to see it from his backyard.
Kerr County Pct. 2 Commissioner Jonathan Letz is also kin. Roy’s mother, Ida Ingenhuett Perkins, and Jonathan’s grandmother, Hedwig Ingenuett Letz, were sisters. Jonathan, who lives in Kerr County on one of the old family spreads, often comes to High Street, but he, too, hates gazing at the ruined structure.
In the mid-1800s, as the frontiers of the Texas Hill Country were becoming populated, counties were being shaped and reshaped in the first several decades of settlement.
Joshua Brown first arrived in the area that became Kerr County, and returned two years later, in 1848; the town of Kerrville was taking root. When Kerr County was carved out of Bexar County in 1856, Kerrville was established as the county seat.
For several years, however, the town grew slowly due to its remoteness and exposure to Indian attacks. In 1860, county residents decided to move the county seat to Comfort, a more well-established community to the east.
On Oct. 14, 1861, Hubert Inguenhuett and Ernst Schmidt signed an election report certifying that 103 votes had been cast in Comfort (Pct. 2) of Kerr County to choose Comfort as the Kerr County seat, over 14 votes for Kerrville.
Comfort had seen its earliest residents — the Schladoer, Wiedenfeld, McFadin and Denton families — arrive starting in 1852, and within four years, the list of mostly German clans grew quickly: Dietert, Bauer, Holekamp, Schellhase, Steves, Bohnert, Schwethelm, Faltin, Stieler, Spenrath and Ingenhuett.
Roy said the Ingenhuetts, from Heinsberg, Germany, were Catholics. Leaving home in 1854, Hubert Ingenhuett (1808-1888), his wife, Gertrude Walters (1818-1878) and their sons, Thomas and Martin, followed the oldest son, Peter Joseph (1822-1923), to America. Peter arrived at Indianola in December, 1852, working at a farm in Cibolo. Once his family arrived, they purchased a farm west of Cypress Creek.
In the early years, the local and national political pictures began changing, as the Civil War flared. The year before, the county became divided over the secession question in 1860, narrowly voting in favor of secession, 76-57. In Precinct 2, by a margin of 53-34, voters had cast their ballots opposing secession from the Union.
Most German settlers were opposed to leaving the Union, while most Anglo settlers favored secession.
Unionists from Kerr, Gillespie, and Kendall counties were among those who participated in the formation of the Union League in the summer of 1861, and by the summer of 1862 formed companies to protect the frontier against Indians and their families against Confederate forces.
As tensions increased, Kerr and other counties were declared to be in rebellion, and Confederate forces were ordered to suppress the rebellion. A party of about 68 unionists, mostly German immigrants from Gillespie, Kendall and Kerr counties, met on Turtle Creek and headed south seeking asylum in Mexico. Confederate forces headed them off — 19 were killed by Confederates on the Nueces River. Later, eight others were killed at the Rio Grande. Others drowned attempting to swim the river.
They are commemorated in Comfort by the Treue der Union (True to the Union) monument.
Loyalties also divided parts of the Ingenhuett clan. While one of their relatives, Dr. Ernst Kapp of Sisterdale, had signed an oath of allegiance to the Confederacy, others sided with the Union. An early immigrant from Germany, Kapp received land grants while Texas was still a republic, per documents signed by its president, Sam Houston. Kapp, incidentally, was a noted author on philosophy, and a health enthusiast, who established a “water cure” spa in the Hill Country.
By 1862, three years after a petition for a new county by residents of Boerne and Sisterdale, Kendall County was formed out of parts of Kerr and Blanco counties. This shift brought Kerrville back as the Kerr County seat, and Boerne became the seat of Kendall County.
Meanwhile, after the war, life went on for the Ingenhuetts. Selling his share of the farm to his brothers, Peter married Marie Karger.
Peter, Sr. and Marie had six children: Hubert, Paul (1868-1932), Herman, Ernst, Bertha, and a daughter who died in infancy. Hubert married Mathilda Real, while Paul wed Ida Flach. In 1867, Peter J. set up the store with his brother-in-law, Charles Karger. The partnership fell through when Paul bought the business from his father in 1891 for $20,000. Peter also established a hotel, saloon and livery stable, and was town postmaster from 1869-1894.
Paul and Ida Ingenhuett had four children: Peter (II), Hedwig, Paula and Ida (1907-1935). They lived above the store until they built their home, also designed by Giles, around the corner in 1897.
Most of the Ingenhuetts’ businesses were built of limestone rocks quarried from the family property, containing an astonishing quirk.
“When the rocks were quarried, according to the article in the Comfort News, white albino frogs were found hiding in the crevices about the size of a man’s hand,” Roy said. “When the sunlight reached them, the frogs perished.”
Paul opened a private bank in the store, where people could purchase merchandise on credit, but sometimes the banking business created animosities. Jonathan said he found a revealing document written by one of his great-grandparents.
“I have a letter from Paul or Ida to their children about how to lend money,” he said. “It’s very direct. It said that when you’re in the banking business, it’s a business. You never make loans below 10, or even 12 percent, and you always get three times the collateral on the value of a loan.”
The mercantile store and the bank were the core of the Ingenhuetts’ financial foundation.
In 1878, Peter’s brothers, Thomas and Martin, set up a brewery on the banks of Cypress Creek, but once the railroad arrived (about 10 years later), and started bringing in ice-cold Pearl and Lone Star beer to town, the brewery vanished. Thomas had married Anna Von Roggebucke; when she died in 1885, Thomas married Martin’s widow (Martin died in 1881), Marie Vogt.
On the corner of High and 8th streets, a limestone building stands yards away from the old mercantile store. A historical marker notes it was the shop of the town’s first blacksmith, Jacob Gass, with living quarters upstairs.
Paul enjoyed polo, and even had a team of donkeys used for play. Roy III has a mallet wielded in their games. Peter II attended St. Louis College (now St. Mary’s) when Dwight D. Eisenhower, later U.S. president, was a coach there. All of his sisters obtained college degrees, which was unusual for the women of their time.
Ida Ingenhuett married Roy Perkins II (1902-1978), and they had one child, Roy Perkins, III, who now lives in the Paul Ingenhuett home. Roy maintains the Methodist Episcopal Church of the South, which once had served the early community of Brownsboro, about six or seven miles east of Comfort. It later was moved to his property. Paul and Ida had originally gone there to church on Sundays, bringing their two kitchen chairs with them on their buckboard. The little church still has its original windows, he said.
There’s also an old smokehouse (once called the cooler, where drunks from the saloon were taken to “cool off”) and the vacant old opera house. The opera house, James said, sometimes was used for church services, and later, to store wool and mohair.
There is a well nearby that was once visited by a famous Mexican revolutionary.
“My mother (Ida Ingenhuett Perkins) said that my grandmother (Ida Flach Ingenhuett), who told all her stories in German, said that she watched as Pancho Villa and his men sat here, drinking water from the well,” Roy said.
Roy II first practiced dentistry without a license in Rocksprings, but later attended Vanderbilt College and obtained a dentists’ license. Eventually, after Comfort’s dentist, Dr. Glazer, retired, Roy II established his office in the back of an antique store across from the old downtown bank (catty-cornered from the Comfort Library).
Roy III, an only child, began working at the age of 15, and expanded his Royal Oaks Farm Caged Eggs business, supplying 16 outlets within four years.
“Jonathan’s father was the one who designed our green-and-white cartons,” Roy said, “which really stood out on the shelves.”
After attending St. Mary’s University and Durham Business College, he worked for more than 30 years at the Texas State Comptroller’s Office as a tax collector.
“Needless to say, I’ve not always been a popular guy,” he added.
After inheriting the home in 1981, he began renovations.
In about 1923, Ida’s sister, Hedwig Ingenhuett, married Udo Letz, who was born in Fisher, Texas, the son of Ernst and Emilie Schleyer Letz. For a time, they lived at the Peter Ingenhuett home on High Street.
“Ernst was a blacksmith,” Jonathan said. “He stowed away on a ship from Germany to get here. The Letz family came from the Saxony area.”
Roy said that apparently, during Prohibition, there was a shipment brought in by railroad at about 2 a.m., which was quickly buried underground. Later, the family couldn’t remember where it was buried, so they dug out the entire garage to find it.
Once the hooch was finally discovered, there had to be “quality control” tests performed, Roy added.
“The pharmacist, Mr. Codrington, wanted to verify what it contained, and after he ‘sampled’ it, found it was 120 percent alcohol,” Roy said. “So, naturally, he had to confirm the results, and took another sample, ‘just to make sure.’”
James remembers having a hand in the process, too.
“I stirred many a pot of homebrew for the neighbors,” he said.
Hedwig Ingenhuett and Udo Letz had one child, Paul (1925-1988), who was an artist. He married another artist, Anne “Tay” Seaman, who he met at the Parsons School of Design in New York. Paul worked in the textiles industry, and was very successful. They had three children: Derek (deceased), Paula, and Jonathan.
Paul and Tay divorced, however, and Jonathan said when he was a small child, his mother and siblings moved to Houston, “via Florida.” Jonathan went to a private high school in Virginia, and then got a degree from the University of Texas. He worked for Exxon and eventually moved here full-time in 1989, finally returning to his ancestral roots.
In 2000, he married Karen Biermann, who is related to the Krauters. They live on the land, now Cherry Creek Ranch, that Udo Letz had bought in 1935, and are partners with Jonathan’s sister, Paula and her husband, Carl “Freddie” Russ.
Jonathan and Karen have two sons — Sam and Gus — and, beside his work as commissioner, they raise Brangus cattle and have other enterprises. Several years ago, they were honored by the Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife with a Lone Star Land Stewards’ award.
When the old store burned, it was owned by descendants of Peter Ingenhuett, Jr., and Jenny Flach, who had three children: Warren, Gladys and Fay. Warren wed Marjorie Ranzau, while Fay married Claude Kelley; and Gladys wed James Krauter.
James, who is nearly 84 years old, said that Peter, Ingenhuett Jr. passed away in 1955. His widow, Jenny, took over the store, but James was already helping long before she died 20 years later.
“I had that store for 60 years,” James said. It had been remodeled in 1949, when the hardware section became separate from the grocery area.
James and his twin brother, John, both grew up in the Comfort area. They served in WWII with the 150th Infantry, and the returning solders celebrated their homecoming in 1946 at Bruno’s Curve.
“After that, we all went back to work,” James said.
The brothers attended Schreiner University, but John also went on to study at UT. James and Gladys had four children, of whom only one, Peter, is still living. He is an entymologist with the USDA in Bryan, Texas. Sadly, James said, much of his family is gone: Gregory committed suicide, Jenny died of a seizure in 1983, and Tulisha, the youngest, died of cancer in 2002. Gladys died in 1995, and John recently passed away in Oklahoma.
However, James said he has four grandchildren, two of whom live with him on his ranch near the Bat Cave Tunnel on Highway 9, through which the long-defunct railroad line to Fredericksburg once ran.
“I remember back in the ’30s, we’d drive our cars down the railroad tracks,” James said. “We’d deflate the tires, and they’d fit perfectly on the tracks.”
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I ran across this article and was very disappointed that the Warren Ingenhuett heirs were not mentioned. Warren and Margie Ingenhuett have 4 children. Peter Warren Ingenhuett, Dennis Paul Ingenhuett, Diane Ingenhuett Lindner, and Sharon Ingenhuett Schmidt. Peter Warren Ingenhuett has 3 children,(Troy, DeAnne, and Michelle) Dennis Ingenhuett has 1 son,(Paul) Diane Ingenhuett Lindner married James Lindner and they have 3 children,(Bryan, Wesley, and Dayna) and Sharon Ingenhuett Schmidt married Eddy Schmidt and they have 2 children.(Tyson and Shayna)
Ms. Lindner:
It is generally our intention to name many of the descendants in our family series. However, we are limited in the amount of space available for our stories, considering that they are also accompanied by numerous photographs.
Therefore, given the fact that quite often these pioneer families are very large, regrettably, it is pretty much impossible to name everyone.
We appreciate your comments and hope you found the story of interest.
Hello Irene,
Yes, I did enjoy the story but I think you should attempt to include ALL descendants. In this case, you only left out ONE of the decendents. It would not have taken very much space and you probably could have cut out some of the other descendant information in order to be fair to the entire pioneer family. To my knowledge, no one was even contacted to offer information or pictures. I will be glad to personally talk to you about this at any time!!