SHE DID IT HER WAY
Born in 1892, when females were not expected to have a career, Waldine Amanda Tauch received encouragement to draw from her father who was a photographer. He allowed her to copy his photographs. In an interview conducted in the early 1980s, Waldine said that the day before she started school in Schulenberg, someone showed her […]
Elisabet Ney, Sculptor of Renown
In 1873, perhaps the most unusual and nonconforming couple in early Texas—German sculptor Elisabet Ney and her husband Scotch philosopher and scientist Dr. Edmund Montgomery—bought a former slave plantation outside Hempstead. “Miss Ney,” as she was called even after her marriage to Dr. Montgomery, had always been beautiful, talented, and self-willed. She shocked her family […]
SHANGHAI PIERCE, A FAIR LIKENESS
It is unusual for a cattleman to come to Texas as a stowaway on a ship. But that is exactly how 19-year-old Abel Head Pierce made his way to Port Lavaca in 1854. Discovered when the ship reached the high seas, he earned his passage by mopping the deck and hauling cargo at ports-of-call along […]
World Renowned Sculptor in Texas
When most people think of Texas in the late 19th Century, they think of cattle drives and stage coaches, one-room schoolhouses and dirt roads. They think of saloons, not salons. But there is more to the story. Long before anyone heard the phrase “women’s libber” Elisabet Ney fit the mold. Born in Münster, Westphalia, in […]