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Note: Page and Entry No.: 386-937; Parents: Carl Findeisen; Franziska Marek; Name of Child: Emma Maria Franziska; Birthdate: 2 September 1888; Place of Birth: New Bremen; Date of Baptism: 7 April 1889; Place of Baptism: New Bremen; Pastor: [no name given]; Godparents: Fr. Emma Grase Frl. Marie Hohle Otto L�dke Emma Findeisen would rather be working in the fields alongside her husband Edmund Ashorn than sewing or cooking indoors. He was more stubborn than Emma was. She was more patient and affectionate than Edmund was. When her children got out of line, she hardly did more than slap their hand. The couple farmed near Wesley, south of Brenham, TX. At first they lived in the old farmhouse, but later they built a new one with a fireplace. Later Emma's son Honey (Edmund Jr.) persuaded them to build the home which Lillian Wilhelm owns today. They didn't have electricity until the 1940's. She remained close to her twin sister Ella. Gloria remembers her childhood as "wonderful, peaceful, quiet days." The family raised peanuts, cotton, corn, kohlrabi, cabbage, carrots, tomatoes, radishes, black-eyed peas, butter beans, lima beans, pinto beans, sweet cane, and watermelons. Wild grapes grew along the fence and climbed all over it. The family had cows, mules, chickens, horses and other animals. A neighbor's horse-powered press turned their sorghum cane into light-brown syrup after the children had carefully removed all the leaves, wiped every stalk with a cloth and stacked them parallel on a tarpaulin on the wagon. They also made their own soap with lye, grease and water. The clear grease was kept in little fruit canning jars on the shelf. They would use the soap to clean everything in their household except their skin. It was pretty strong. When her children got sick, Emma rubbed them with Vicks. Meat came through a "butcher club" in the days before refrigeration. Each week, on a Tuesday or Friday, a different family would furnish a grown calf for slaughter and each family in the club would get a share. A traveling butcher would kill, bleed, skin the large calf, then cut it into sections once it was cool. After dressing the carcass, the traveling butcher would weigh the calf. The dressed weight of their calf determined the family's yearly meat allotment. If they needed more, they would have to pay extra. Large families might provide two calves a year in order to have enough. Each portion of meat went into a clean flour sack and the family would cut their roasts and steaks out of that. They would have to cook it within a day so it wouldn't spoil, and they would eat it all week long. For his part, the butcher wouldn't have to provide his own calf, or he would keep the hides, or else he would be paid $10 a year. Even the butcher in town might run his own club. Families would request certain cuts and the butcher might smile and say, "That calf didn't have all steak. You're going to have to take something else." Most of the meat came in the form of roast. Families would store it in a pie safe with punched tin instead of glass. Emma was much shorter than her descendants, who include Gloria Ashorn Garrett (after whom Ariana Evangeline Loree is named) and Eloise Ann Garrett. She would look at her great-grandsons Mike and Mark McGinnis and say, "Such big boys!" laughing somewhat toothlessly. In her later years, she lived with her daughter Gloria's family in St. Louis, where she constantly read her German Bible.
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