A Story of the Loyal Germans of the Texas Hill Country During the Civil War The town of Fredericksburg, located in the Texas Hill Country near the center of the State, was settled by the German Immigration Society in 1846. The town was a hundred miles past the frontier so the Germans made their own peace treaty with the Camanche Indians who were at war with the Texas at that time. During the next fifteen years German settlers continued to arrive, spreading out to cover a large part of the surrounding country. They learned to farm local crops that suited the local soil and learned to be stockmen as well. In general they prospered. In 1861 the Germans watched Texas succeed from the Union and join the Confederacy with a great deal of dismay. They, like the rest of the frontier settlements, depended on the U.S. Army for protection from the Indians and Mexican bandits. The U.S. Army was rounded up by the Confederates and shipped north by boat leaving many of the frontier forts abandoned. None of the Germans owned slaves or believed in slavery so they did not want to participate with the South in what they saw as a fight for slavery. Most of the Germans had been through the process of becoming United States citizens so they had recently sworn their allegiance to the United States of America and they intended to honor that oath. In June of 1861 the Germans in the Texas Hill Country formed a Union League to express their support for the North in the war that had started at Ft. Sumter two months earlier. This alerted the Confederates to the problem that they had in their midst. While staying true to the history of this time and the historical timeline we shall move to the sping and summer of 1862, place characters in our story and let it move forward from there.

Francis Smith, Oil Finder, is a novel situated in the petroleum industry in New Orleans in the early 1960's. Francis returns to New Orleans from a period of duty as a geologist in Libya with the intentions of finding a wife. He quickly meets a student at Tulane University and a romance begins. He reports for his new assignment with Stumble Oil Company and is handed the task of evaluating a new lease that covers a half million acres of south Louisiana marshland. The program to explore this acreage results in a wildcat well that is drilled into a deep, dangerous, abnormal pressure section in the search for gas. Francis discovers that a number of employees are stealing from Stumble Oil and has to make a decision as to what to do about this. Each of these themes is followed to its conclusion against the background of New Orleans and its surrounding area.

This is a personal account of rural life on a ranch in central Texas from 1926 to 1944. Voy Ernst Althaus, a fourth generation rancher, describes early ranching in Texas, including controlling factors and limitations. The Great Depression and the advent of technology impacted aspects of daily family life from food, hygiene and recreations to the schools they attended. Enjoy this glimpse into the past from the family photo album and Voy's perspective.