By Alec Woolsey - Herald-Zeitung
Walking into Folkfest, an accordion in the distance plays as people snap pictures with their smartphones of food prepared in Dutch-ovens by 19th-century reenactors.
Someone wearing lederhosen may walk by, and a Civil War-era cannon is fired before the day is over.
Folkfest is held each year on the grounds of the Museum of Texas Handmade Furniture, which puts the history of both New Braunfels and Texas at the center of attention. The event’s organizers hope to honor and remember the way of life that built a now-bustling New Braunfels. Saturday was the first day, but it continues today from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
“It’s been great,” Kat Kyle Balmos, chairman of Heritage Society of New Braunfels, said. “We are definitely breaking some records, I think. I can tell by the parking lot and the amount of volunteers we have that are very busy. We’ve added more stations and more food trucks and they are all doing well.”
According to Kathy Nichols, the executive director of the Heritage Society and director at the Museum of Texas Handmade Furniture, Folkfest celebrates more than just German heritage.
“It’s an attempt to bring all different cultures together and to get to see what life was like in the early part of the century,” Nichols said.
Even if the crowds are bigger and the number of vendors and volunteers is larger, Balmos says the event is still what many have come to expect.
“We infused it with just a little bit more energy, but it’s still the same festival, though,” she said. “It’s just maybe adding some different kinds of music, some new vendors, some social media advertising which it really needed. That was something that was just a generational thing.”
Greg and Sarah Webb said they are new to New Braunfels, but they are doing their best to attend every festival held in the town. They attended the event with their two children, Aurora and Cohen.
“Honestly, Sarah and I are into this old-school country stuff where you have live music… When you have this beautiful country setting, you just like to get out and walk around and kind of enjoy the atmosphere. That’s what we were looking for,” Greg Webb said. “We didn’t know what to expect other than it’s going to be pretty and have stuff from the 1800s.”
“I loved the washer — how they washed the clothes with the soap and everything,” Sarah Webb said.
“The blacksmith was pretty cool,” Greg said. “And I’m a huge Dutch-oven fan, and so smelling that dutch-oven cobbler cooking was my favorite.”
Some attend for the history, but other come for the shows. David Lux came to see his granddaughter.
“They had the German Society children singing over there earlier, and our granddaughter is in that, so we came to hear them,” he said.
Lux said the event had attractions for him, such as antiques and the cabinet shop, but also hands-on crafts for the kids.
“They have interesting things,” he said. “Different things for the kids to do, making candles and making pottery and stuff.”
The event is highly reliant on volunteers to keep the whole thing going, and passion plays a big role in getting them to come out each year. Mike Luft was working in the cabinet shop on Saturday, where he showed off how to use antique tools that had been passed down through his family. For him, the event is an opportunity to show children, and even adults, a part of life that may have been lost in the past century.
“We don’t teach it in school,” Luft said, talking about working with the tools. “Some of these parents have no idea with stuff like that and so I’m kind of passionate about it.”
A special addition to Folkfest this year was the antiques section, where visitors could see items that aren’t usually found around town. Lark Mason, who has appeared on the PBS show “Antiques Roadshow” and is in the art auction business, set up an antiques shop in the Kaffee & Art Haus in the back of the property, where he showed off a collection of antiques that aren’t easy to get ahold of. He said he lives between New York City and New Braunfels, but loves how much effort New Braunfels puts into preserving its history.
“We just thought it was terrific and wanted to be a participant and help raise awareness for this group in a small way try to bring in an audience of people that might be a little different from the people that ordinarily come here,” Mason said.
“The fellow that does the chuckwagon, the reinactors… I love the whole thing,” he said. “And I love that they are making these historic structures come alive for people, because they see people using them in a way that is consistent with how they would normally be used.”
2017 marks the 27th Folkfest in New Braunfels, and today is the final day of the weekend-long event.