My Earliest Recollections
CHAPTER I
I was born in the city of Bremen, Germany, on the 18th day of May, 1841. My father was a native of Prussia, and my mother of the Kingdom of Hanover. They were married in the city of Bremen in 1839. There were five children born unto them; a daughter, the oldest of the family, died in Bremen; the others moved with the family to Texas. I was educated at a private school, starting at six years old, up to the time of our removal to Texas in 1853.
In connection with the ordinary literary course, the French and English languages were taught in the higher grades in which I had just entered, but when father decided to move to Texas, he had me drop the French and employed an additional private teacher to come to our home and give me English lessons, which enabled me to speak the English language on our arrival in Texas.
Our father was a manufacturer of fine mahogany furniture and established a profitable trade on this with New York, exporting more of his furniture than was sold at home, though he had quite an extensive local trade, as his styles and work were very popular, all of his furniture being hand carved.
The great Revolution of 1848, which caused great stringency in financial affairs of the country, forced him to mortgage his home, and from this he never recovered. It was this condition that induced his removal to Texas.
Father and I came to Texas a year in advance of the balance of the family, for the purpose of getting acquainted with the country and its conditions. Then, the year following the rest of the family came over. We settled in Houston, Texas. We came over on a large sailing ship, as steamships were very few, and we came by way of New Orleans, where we found a great yellow fever epidemic, though we escaped it this year.
I forgot to mention that, when a child about four years old, I was playing on the river front, sliding up and down on a plank with one end in the water, the other end on the steps leading down to the water, when I lost my hold, slid into the river and under the bottom of a schooner, coming out on the opposite side, where one of the sailors caught me by the hair just as I started under the third time. I was carried home unconscious. This proved my first narrow escape from death, of which I had many during life.
Soon after our arrival in Houston, father worked in an undertaking establishment for a man by the name of Pannel, but during the first summer, both father and mother were taken sick with typhoid fever and died within one week, leaving me, the oldest of the family, then thirteen years old, to take care of the rest of the children.