Temporary Closure
Our DRT Library at the Alamo is nearing completion of the final phase of the inventory and will be closed temporarily beginning Monday, January 14, 2013. The inventory is a joint project of the Texas General Land Office and the Daughters of the Republic of Texas.
Although the inventory will result in a temporary closure of the library, the result will be one of the most comprehensive catalogs of Texas history. We look forward to re-opening the DRT Library at the Alamo following the inventory.
Sincerely,
Karen R. Thompson
President General
Daughters of the Republic of Texas
Beckmann Family Papers Now Processed
Pioneer Flour Mills, shown in a photograph taken on November 8, 1884.
The DRT Library is excited to announce that a project to process the Adolph Guenther and Milby Giles Beckmann Family Papers is now complete. The collection is now open to researchers. A finding aid, or inventory, is available through the library’s online catalog and website and through Texas Archival Resources Online (TARO). As reported previously, the sizable collection was generously donated by David and Myrna Langford in December 2009.
Adolph Guenther Beckmann, circa 1915.
Milby Giles as a Duchess in the Fiesta Court of Carnival Flowers (1911) and Court of Lilies (1912). In 1915 she married her Duke, Adolph Beckmann.
The Adolph Guenther and Milby Giles Beckmann Family Papers contain correspondence, financial and property records, scrapbooks, printed material, and photographs that document four generations of a San Antonio, Texas, family. The bulk of Adolph and Milby’s papers are financial and include ledger books, records documenting various family properties in and around San Antonio, income tax paperwork, and files pertaining to the administration of their estates. Two noteworthy items in the collection are an 1850 land patent to Milby’s grandfather John James for land in Wilson County, Texas, and a ledger book maintained by Adolph’s grandfather John Conrad Beckmann between 1859 and 1866 for his blacksmith shop, located next to the Alamo near where the DRT Library now stands.
Bathing at Pioneer Flour Mills, 1900.
The collection also contains a significant number of photographs, some contained within albums assembled by Adolph and Milby. Most of the images are of Adolph, Milby, and their relatives, especially members of the Beckmann and Guenther families. The collection includes formal studio portraits and more informal photos. Almost all of the pictures have been labeled with the names of the individuals shown. Photographs document Albert Felix, Marie Guenther, Adolph Guenther, and Milby Giles Beckmann throughout their lives, from infancy or childhood through adulthood. Two noteworthy photographs are family portraits of Carl Hilmar and Dorothea Pape Guenther with their children, daughters- and sons-in-law, and grandchildren, dated 1893 and 1895. The collection also contains Albert Felix Beckmann architecture photographs; images of San Antonio, including many of early-twentieth-century floods; and pictures of the Guenther-Beckmann family business, Pioneer Flour Mills.
Click here for a full citation of the documents and images included in this entry.
First Saturday Exhibit This Saturday, December 1
The DRT Library will be open this coming Saturday, December 1, and visitors will be invited to come and explore displays of rare and unique documents, photographs, books, and artifacts.
Protected and housed in our secure, climate-controlled vault, these original materials are exhibited infrequently, although library patrons can access them for individual research projects. Many of the items on display, including those related to the Battle of the Alamo and the Texas Revolution, cannot be seen anywhere else.
During December’s First Saturday Exhibit, visitors will be able to see:
- “‘The Bright Gladness of Christmas,’” highlighting photographs, greeting cards, and other holiday materials.
- “Treasures from the Collections,” showcasing a sampling of some of the most significant items in the DRT Library’s holdings.
- “The Alamo through Time,” featuring a selection of historical photographs of the former mission and its vicinity.
Visitors will also be able to explore the original artwork in the library’s reading room.
The exhibit is free and will be open to the public from 10:00 am until 4:00 pm. Patrons will not be able to conduct research while the exhibit is on display.
This weekend’s event is part of a new series of First Saturday Exhibits, which take place on the first Saturday of each month in conjunction with living history activities at the Alamo (http://thealamo.org/visitors/events_details.php). We will post reminders and additional information here at “Inside the Gates” as each subsequent exhibit draws closer. The dates of our 2013 First Saturday Exhibits are January 5, February 2, March 2 (Texas Independence Day), April 6, May 4, June 1, July 6, August 3, September 7, October 5, November 2, and December 7.
El Día de los Muertos
The first two days of November mark El Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, a Mexican cultural tradition and national holiday that is also celebrated by Latinos and, increasingly, non-Latinos across Texas and the United States. In honor of this holiday, we’re highlighting a selection of photographs of people cleaning and decorating family grave sites, an important traditional component of El Día de los Muertos. A small number of pictures appear to show flower and food vendors, who were probably located near the cemetery. Most, and possibly all, of the photographs were taken by Dick McConnaughey. His San Antonio address, stamped on the back of the photographs, allowed us to date them to around 1951, the year McConnaughey was listed at that location in the city directory. Preliminary research indicates that the pictures were taken at San Antonio’s San Fernando Cemetery #2.
Helpful guidelines for El Dia de los Muertos written by an unknown author, contained with the library’s vertical files.
As celebrated today, El Día de los Muertos combines elements of the pre-Hispanic religious beliefs and practices of Mesoamerican Indians with the Catholic holy feast days of All Saints (the November 1st commemorative festival of all Christian saints and martyrs known or unknown) and All Souls (the November 2 liturgical day commemorating all the faithful departed). El Día de los Muertos pays tribute to those who have passed and is a celebration that invites the deceased to join the living in a festival of eating, drinking, and rejoicing. Elizabeth Carmichael and Chloë Sayer write in The Skeleton at the Feast that the holiday “is a time of family reunion not only for the living but also the dead who, for a few brief hours each year, return to be with their relatives in this world” (14).
Several sources at the DRT Library describe family altars as being at the center of El Día de los Muertos, serving as “thresholds between heaven and earth” and “sites for encounters with the dead.” According to a 1994 Texas Highways article, “altars to loved ones and religious icons are common elements in many Hispanic Catholic homes, but near El Día de los Muertos, families often expand the altar to incorporate an ofrenda,” or offering (43). While the ofrendas placed at graves or added to household altars vary between regions and individuals, several items are considered essential, including candles and yellow marigolds to help draw the spirits home. Delicacies such as mole sauce, tamales, pan de muerto (bread of the dead) and sugar skulls are also usually part of the ofrenda.
Sister Rosa Maria Icaza, a professor of Hispanic culture at San Antonio’s Mexican American Cultural Center, observed in the 1994 Texas Highways article that “Halloween tends to be more of a joke. Halloween celebrations, which focus on costumes, masks, and masquerading as other people, remove the reality of death happening to us personally. The Day of the Dead is playful, but it still reminds us of the people who have died and acknowledges that we will join them” (45).
References and Further Reading
The Skeleton at the Feast: The Day of the Dead in Mexico by Elizabeth Carmichael and Chloë Sayer
El Día de los Muertos vertical files, Daughters of the Republic of Texas Library
“Día de los Muertos” by Christian Clarke Cásarez, University of Texas at Austin feature story
Click here for a full citation of the documents and images included in this entry.
First Saturday Exhibit This Saturday, November 3
The DRT Library will be open this coming Saturday, November 3, and visitors will be invited to come and explore displays of rare and unique documents, photographs, books, and artifacts.
Protected and housed in our secure, climate-controlled vault, these original materials are exhibited infrequently, although library patrons can access them for individual research projects. Many of the items on display, including those related to the Battle of the Alamo and the Texas Revolution, cannot be seen anywhere else.
During November’s First Saturday Exhibit, visitors will be able to see:
- “‘The Noise of Democracy,’” highlighting nineteenth- and twentieth-century election materials from our collections.
- “Treasures from the Collections,” showcasing a sampling of some of the most significant materials in the DRT Library’s holdings.
- “The Alamo through Time,” featuring a selection of historical photographs of the former mission and its vicinity.
Visitors will also be able to explore the original artwork in the library’s reading room.
The exhibit is free and will be open to the public from 10:00 am until 4:00 pm. Patrons will not be able to conduct research while the exhibit is on display.
This weekend’s event is part of a new series of First Saturday Exhibits, which take place on the first Saturday of each month in conjunction with living history activities at the Alamo (http://thealamo.org/visitors/events_details.php). We will post reminders and additional information here at “Inside the Gates” as each subsequent exhibit draws closer. The remaining 2012 First Saturday Exhibit will be on December 1.
“Out of 86 That Came to Va There is Only Three Now Left”
The DRT Library has a number of materials pertaining to the Civil War, and one especially powerful document is a letter contained within the Walker and Stanfield Families Papers. “A letter has just arrived in the company from you to your son George,” Ordinance Sergeant M. A. Dunham wrote to Sarah Walker on October 20, 1864, “and it is with sorrow that I now attempt to answer that letter and to impart to you the sad intelligence of your sons death.” Badly faded and stained, the letter was transcribed by former DRT Library Archivist Warren Stricker. (Original spellings and punctuation have been left unchanged.)
The first page of M. A. Dunham’s letter to Sarah Walker.
The second page of the letter.
Near Richmond Va Octr 20″ 1864 Mrs. Sarah A. Walker
Dear MadamA letter has just arrived in the company from you to your son George and it is with sorrow that I now attempt to answer that letter and to impart to you the sad intelligence of your sons death. George was killed in battle on the 29″ of August near Richmond.* he was shot in the breast and died immediately. He joined our company (Co. “B” 1st Texas vols) in Galveston Texas in April 1861. He went through all the hard campaigns in Va. participated in nearly every battle and proved himself a good and brave soldier George Walker was thought well of by his company and by all that knew him. At the time he joined our company he was wild like other young men of his age but for the last year George had lead a new life. he had attached himself to the church and had been babtised he was a christian patriot and died in the faith of a blessed immortality. George survived nearly all the members of his company. out of 86 that came to Va there is only three now left the others have been killed and disabled I am sorry to say that George’s body fell into the hands of the enemy.** during the battle our Brig was moved from the place that George fell and the enemy occupied the ground which was never retaken afterwards. You will please excuse my short letter if it is in my power to give you any further information please let me know it accept my sympathies and believe me to be your friend and well wisher
Address
M.A. Dunham Ord. Sergt 1st Texas Regt Texas Brig Fields Div A N Va P.S. Lt. C. L. Bradford is now commanding the company (Co. “B.” George has some pay due him. You had better write to Lt. Bradford what you want done in the premises &c M.A. Dunham
Part of a letter from George A. Walker to his mother, although the handwriting does not appear to be his. The letter was probably written between September 1863 and February 1864, when Longstreet’s Corps reinforced the Army of Tennessee.
A hospital orderly from 1862 to 1864, George served in the Confederate First Texas Infantry, part of Hood’s Texas Brigade and one of only three regiments from the Lone Star State to fight in the Eastern Theater. As part of the Army of Northern Virginia’s First Corps, the brigade fought in a number of major engagements, including Second Manassas, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, Chickamauga, Chattanooga (siege), the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House, Cold Harbor, and Petersburg (siege). At Antietam, the First Texas suffered an 82% casualty rate, reportedly the highest of any regiment, North or South, on a single day during the entire war. Published sources indicate that no one from George Walker’s Co. B survived to be paroled at Appomattox in April 1865.
M. A. Dunham was originally a private with George Walker in the First’s Co. B. Detailed to recruit in Texas in early 1862, Dunham was wounded three times within three months during the summer of that year. He was transferred to Co. M before being appointed a regimental Ordinance Sergeant in August 1863. Nothing else about Dunham is known at this time.
Sarah Ann Vauchere (1811-1899) married Tennessean Jacob Walker (1799-1836) in Louisiana in 1827. The couple came to Texas about 1830 and settled in Sabine County. Son George Anthony was born around the time of his father’s death at the Alamo in 1836. Legend has it that during the Texas Revolution the newly-widowed Sarah rode 300 miles to Gonzales to warn Gen. Houston about a possible Indian attack. In January 1837, Sarah married Jacob’s cousin James Robert “Jim Bob” Walker; he died in 1850, when Sarah was pregnant with her ninth child. By the time of George Walker’s death in 1864, three of his siblings were already deceased.
*According to Harold B. Simpson’s work Hood’s Texas Brigade: A Compendium, George Walker died on September, not August, 29th, at the Battle of Chaffin’s Farm. Simpson’s work was based on Confederate muster rolls and service records.
**George’s body may have eventually been returned to Texas; his grave at the family cemetery in McLennan County is marked with a headstone.
Click here for a full citation of the documents and images included in this entry.
Researcher Profile: John Richardson
Researcher John Richardson.
The researchers who access DRT Library collections in the reading room or who contact us via email or phone bring interesting projects, questions, and interests. Here at “Inside the Gates” we’re going to periodically highlight some of our patrons and their stories.
*****
A twelve-year veteran of the Alamo’s education department, John Richardson is a familiar face at the DRT Library and one of our most frequent patrons. His many research projects have covered a wide variety of topics related to the Siege and Battle of the Alamo, the Texas Revolution, and the broader contexts in which these events occurred. Examples of Richardson’s recent projects include:
- determining the first mention of the Bowie knife at the Battle of the Alamo, information he found in the library’s copy of The New Yorker from May 14, 1836;
- authenticating a sword allegedly presented to Sam Houston using a variety of library sources, including Madge Thornall Roberts’ four-volume Personal Correspondence of Sam Houston;
- examining library vertical files for information about Alamo defender Gregorio Esparza, his family, and his descendants;
- creating a staff ride for the Battle of Bexar using sources such as the Veramendi property title abstract, which provided detailed descriptions of its size and various owners after the Texas Revolution; and
- using San Antonio city directories to research the location of the Alamo defenders’ funeral pyres for a tour for descendants of David Crockett.
While personal edification drives some of his research, Richardson also undertakes projects on behalf of other Alamo scholars and enthusiasts. Questions from Alamo visitors, who either talk with him on the grounds or contact him by mail or email, also bring Richardson to the DRT Library to conduct research. He uses the information he finds here to follow up with them and retains it for future conversations with other visitors. Richardson recently became the Alamo’s Staff Ride Coordinator, and in this position he provides systematic analysis and site tours of the Alamo battlefield for visiting military personnel. Because each group is interested in a particular element of the battle that relates to its specific mission, Richardson’s new position has compelled him to substantially expand his knowledge about the event; this in turn has led him to gather additional information, an endeavor facilitated by the DRT Library.
“I tell people that the library is one of the Alamo’s best-kept secrets,” Richardson said. “I especially like the fact that anyone can come in and do research, no appointment or credentials needed. All you need is an interest in Texas history. Yes, I work here, but the accessibility would still be there even if I wasn’t an Alamo employee.” We couldn’t have said it any better ourselves, John!
