History and heritage: Cooking, woodworking and crafts galore in NB

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.

Cecilia Abbott visits Comal County Republicans

By Alec Woolsey - Herald-Zeitung

Comal County Republicans served as host to a state celebrity earlier this week, but her visit was more than a simple hello.

The New Braunfels Republican Women’s organization welcomed guest speaker Cecilia Abbott, the first lady of Texas and wife of Gov. Greg Abbott, during its annual potluck supper on Monday, June 19, at Seekatz Opera House. Abbott spoke on matters relating to women, Republicans and Texans in a brief speech during the dinner.

“Along the way, I have met so many Texans like you who are making the future even brighter, and I believe that we are each called to service,” Abbott said to the audience. “And by being here today, you have enthusiastically answered that call.”

The first lady recognized philanthropic efforts from the organization’s attendees, going so far as to say those efforts spoke to a deeper pursuit of hers.

“As first lady, my top priority is promoting service to others, and I am working with all of Texas to bring together the two things I am most passionate about: Texas and philanthropy,” she said. “I like to call it ‘Texanthropy.’”

The New Braunfels Republican Women’s website describes its members as “proud of (their) contributions to the growth and success of the Republican party and strong conservative values in Texas.”

Susan Walker, president of the organization, said in an email she was pleased with how the event turned out.

“From my perspective, this meeting was perfect,” Walker said. “We had a marvelous attendance from not only NBRW members, but we were joined by Alamo City Republican Women, Bulverde Area Republican Women, Canyon Lake Republican Women, Hays County Republican Women, Comal County Republican Party, Republican Club of Comal County and the Texas Federation of Republican Women.”

Walker said several notable public officials from the area were in attendance, including state Sen. Donna Campbell, state Rep. Kyle Biedermann, SBOE Ken Mercer, Third Court of Appeals Justice Cindy Bourland, District Judges Bruce Boyer and Dib Waldrip, Comal County District Attorney Jennifer Tharp and Comal County Tax Collector Cathy Talcott.

Walker said the organization aims to bring speakers to its monthly events who can offer insight and education to its members. Inviting Abbott was something the group had been working on in 2017.

“Early this year, we wrote to Mrs. Abbott and requested she speak at an NBRW meeting that best met her schedule,” she said. “We did mention our June meeting (the potluck) is fun and well-attended and were extremely pleased June 19 was available on her busy schedule.”

Abbott took the opportunity to highlight the accomplishments of women in the workforce, saying that Texas is a leader in the nation for female-led businesses.

“Texas is the best state for business, and women have been great leaders of that success,” she said. “We have the second-highest number of women-owned businesses in America, but we want to be the number one state in the nation for women-owned businesses.”

Abbott also spoke about her husband’s accomplishments and efforts in Austin, as well as ramping up campaign efforts ahead of the approaching 2018 election.

“It’s never too early to gear up for the huge effort to keep Texas red,” Abbott said.

Steins of New Braunfels

By Alec Woolsey - Herald-Zeitung

A recent addition to the Wurstfest grounds can’t be found by the typical attendee. Locked away from the masses is a locker in the Opa-exclusive room. 

This isn’t a normal combination locker, though. No, it’s built in the style of old iron work with small keyed padlock and houses something unique — steins.

Around the Wurstfest grounds, Opas will mix and mingle while accompanied by their personal steins. Steins are unique mugs to help beer keep its temperature, but each one usually comes with a story, according to Jeff Jenkins, a kleine Opa.

He says over the years he has accumulated nearly 50 different steins, each one with a history to go along with it. 

“Wustfest issues one each year and then I had some family when I was growing up that lived in Germany that brought me a bunch of steins,” Jenkins said. “I’ve visited Germany four different times and every time I’m there I always end up bringing one or two home.”

His personal favorite? A personalized stein with his family crest and name hand-painted on the side, which he keeps stored in the locker in the Wurstfest locker.

“The one that’s the neatest, I have a very similar one to Marc [Allen] where when when I did some research on the crest for Jenkins, and then the same artist that painted Marc’s, we ordered some steins from Germany and they hand-painted the crest on there.” he said. “That’s the one I keep at Wurstfest most of the time because I think it’s unique and it’s hand-painted.”

He and Marc Allen, an Opa, were instrumental in getting the locker, also known as the Maßkrugtresor, built and installed at Wurstfest for the Opas to use. 

As Allen tells it, he was on a 10-year anniversary trip with his wife in Germany when a stranger joined them at the table after walking over to a wall of lockers and pulling his personal stein out.

“The tradition of that stein locker, [I learned as] I was talking to that man that sat at our table back in 2006, is that that specific locker belongs to him and his family,” Allen said. “And his specific stein was something that was passed down to him. I think that he was like the third or fourth generation to own that particular stein. So we are talking about a stein that was well over 100 years old. And they put their initials and marks on there to represent who they are.”

The stein lockers are a grid of iron-work with small doors the size of a steins that can be locked with a key. 

Allen said the man he spoke with had the rights to those locker spaces his family had, and they would stay with the family until they let them go.

“They pay this annual fee and that’s their locker and it’s something that they can pass down through generations,” he said.

After introducing the idea of the locker to several other Wurstfest member years later on a trip to Germany, including his father, Allen said the idea started to gain traction but was shelved until 2015. 

“About two years ago, when Tim Zipp was becoming the incoming president, we were talking again about this idea of doing this locker,” he said. “At that point, he kind of assigned me to take over control on getting it done.“

He and Jenkins said they were instrumental in getting the 100-stein locker built and installed, which was opened up to Opas to use.

For Allen, the locker was important because of the intimate relationship he said a stein holds with its owner.

“I think it goes both ways, but most of the time the stein chooses you,” he said. “It’s not like I walked up and said, ‘Hey, that’s my crest on the stein.’ All the other steins I had, they kind of chose me. It’s just like, that’s a cool stein I would like to have. It represents the story of my life as far as time I was over in Sandberg or Munich or Salzburg or wherever it was that I picked up the stein.”

As for his favorite stein, he says it’s his family crest, which was hand-painted by his sister. 

“There’s always a story or something significant behind each person’s stein,” Jenkins said. “That’s what makes it kind of neat. It’s unique to the individual.”