Category Archives: Bauer

Louise is the third of five children born to Philipp and Maria Peters Bauer.  She was born on 20 July 1863 in Spring Branch, located in Comal County, Texas.  When she was twenty-one, she married Carl “Charles” Wessely, Jr., son of Karl and Barbara Schimick Wessely. They married on 27 September 1884 in Kendall County.   Seven months after their marriage, her husband, Charles, purchases 160 acres from his father.  His father obtained the 160 acres in 1869 as Land Patent No. 403 from the State of Texas.  His witnesses were  Daniel Meckel and Karl  Meckel, who were friends and neighbors of the family.  He obtained title in 1874 after proving  he had for three years “actually settled upon and cultivated as a homestead.”  This property is a part of Survey 521 and is located “on the waters of the Sabinas Creek, a southern tributary of Guadalupe River about 5 ½ miles N 26 degrees E from Boerne.”  Charles paid his father $1.00 in cash on 21 April 1885 and signed a promissory note to pay the remaining $350.00 with 10% interest in full by 21 April 1887.

Charles and Louise raised seven children on the farm: Otto Charles (1885), Olga Kathrine (1888) married Otto Edward Phillips, Bruno (1890),  Ida Mae (1896) married John O. Wolfe, Hugo (1897), Paul (1902), and Ella (1915) married 1m. Andrew C. Davidson and 2m William Keith Salisbury. Of the seven children, four moved to San Antonio, one son joined the navy, and two stayed on the farm.

In 1900 Louise’s parents, Phillip and Marie Bauer are living with the family. Phillip is 80 and dies in 1902 and Marie in 1905. Both are buried in the Kreutzberg Cemetery.

Carl died of influenza on 30 April 1926.  He was sixty-nine years old and was buried in the Kreutzberg Cemetery located on FM 474.   This cemetery is now known as the Phillip Cemetery.    In the 1920 census, four children lived at home, Bruno, Hugo, Paul, and Ella.  With three sons working on the farm, it must have been productive and well run.  By 1930 Louise is 67, widowed, and the head of household.    Only two sons remain on the farm, Bruno and Hugo.  Louise’s occupation is a timber laborer, Bruno is a laborer, and Hugo is a farmer.  Was Louise chopping cedar every day, or did the census taker make a mistake?  The same year Louise becomes the owner of a vendor’s lien on her 160 acres for $3200.00  made by Harry Schuetz, a nephew, the son of her sister Emma.   In July 1934, Harry was not able to make all the payments.  He asks for an extension, which is granted, and then sells the note to Willie Rust.  

On 6 January 1935, Louise, age seventy-one, dies by drowning in the Sabinas Creek sometime between midnight and dawn.  Otto Pfeiffer called Justice of the Peace J. A. Phillip, asking him to come to the Wessely farm.   Phillip and Sheriff Edward Bierschwale show up around 6:30 a.m.  There they hold an inquest and Phillip rules her death as a suicide.   She is buried next to her husband in the Kreutzberg Cemetery.

 Texas. Kendall County Deed Records, V. 8, p 375-376. Kendall County Court House. Boerne.  

Texas. Kendall County Deed Records, V. 54, p. 38. Kendall County Court House. Boerne.

Texas. Kendall County Death Records. Kendall County Court House. Boerne.

When her sister-in-law, Edna Wessely, died, and her brother Otto was in the hospital, Ida Mae helped take care of her nephew and niece, Warren and Dorothy.  At the time of Edna’s death, both families were living on Cooper Street in San Antonio.

Ida Mae is the daughter of Charles and Louise Bauer Wessely and the granddaughter of Phillip and Marie Peters Bauer and Karl and Barbara Schmick Wessely.  She was born on 2 November 1896 in Kendall County, Texas.

Ida married  John Oscar Wolfe, in Kendall County, on 16 April 1914.  John was born in Biltmore, North Carolina.  His is described on his World War I draft registration card as medium height, blue eyes, and brown hair.  By 1920 they are living in San Antonio.  John is a plumber working for the San Antonio City Water Board.  They have two children, a son Charles W. and a daughter Ella.   By 1930 they have moved to 318 Mary Street and two more children have been born to the family, a son John and a daughter Elsie May.  John is a foreman for the San Antonio City Water Board and they own a radio!   Just two months after the census,  John, age 38, died with inflammation of the membrane around the heart and pneumonia.  He was buried in the San Jose Burial Park in San Antonio.  Ida, age 34,  was left with four children to raise.  She never remarried.

Ten years later,  Ida is living at 115 East Baylor Street and working as a seamstress.  Living with her is her nephew Warren, niece Dorothy, and daughter Elsie Mae, age 14. 

Her son John Oscar Wolfe preceded her in death.  He died 5 March 1951 at age 31 and is buried in the San Jose Burial Park.  John was a World War II veteran and was employed by Mayflower Transit Company in Corpus Christi.  He was survived by two sons Larry J. and John and one daughter Peggy Jean.

Ida, age 69,  died on 3 June 1966 at the Santa Rosa Medical Center.  She was survived by Charles W. Wolfe of San Antonio, Mrs. Milton (Ella) Rogers of San Antonio, and Mrs. Alfred (Elsie May) Tobola of Del Rio; a sister Mrs. Ella Davidson of San Antonio and brother Paul Wessely of California; 14 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren.

Ida Mae is Emma Schuetz’s niece.

Otto Charles Wessely, son of  Charles and Louise Bauer Wessely, was born in Kendall County, Texas, on 30 October 1885.  Sometime in 1906, he enlisted in the United States Navy.  Eleven years later, on 11 May 1917, Otto entered the Naval Hospital on Mare Island in Vallejo, Solano County, California.  According to the patient listings, he served ten years and ten months in the Navy.  His rank was GM-1 (Gunners Mate First Class).   He is 31 years old and stationed at Puget Sound, Washington.  Otto received treatment for tuberculous a chronic pulmonary condition, which he had before entering the Navy.  On 5 July 1918, he was discharged and on 12 September 1918, he is living in Denver, Colorado, working as a baggage man at the Union Deport for W. P. R.R. Co.  Fortunately, he left the hospital on Mare Island before September 1918.  At that time, the hospital began to see patients with the Spanish Flu, and over a few short months, they acquired 1,500 patients, with many of them dying of complications.

While in Denver, he filled out his required World War I draft registration card.  Otto is described as a tall, slender man with blue eyes and medium brown hair.  He wrote he is unable to serve because he has tuberculosis.  He is living with his wife, Edna, at 226 Inca.  Otto and Edna Tyndall married in King, Washington, on 6 December 1916.  By 1920 they are living in San Antonio in a rented house on Cooper Street, and he is working in a government position as an apprentice electrician.  Ten years later, the 1930 census shows they are still living on Cooper Street, and he is working as a janitor for a Baptist Church. They now have two children, Warren M., age nine, and Dorothy L., age six.  Edna is forty years old and has tuberculosis. She died in November and the doctor listed on her death certificate, she had the disease for about five or six years. She is buried in Mission Park South in San Antonio.

In 1940 Otto is in the Veterans Administration Hospital in Legion, Texas.  Legion is located south of Kerrville, in Kerr County.  His children, Warren and Dorothy, are living with Otto’s youngest sister, Ida Wessely Wolfe in San Antonio.

Otto died on 11 August 1962 at the Veterans Administration Center in Temple, Texas. He was 76 years old.  He was survived by Warren M. Wessely and Mrs. Dorothy Trimmier of San Antonio; 5 grandchildren; sisters, Mrs. Ida Wolfe and Mrs. Ella Dickinson both of San Antonio; brother Paul Wessely of Los Angeles, California.

He is the nephew of Emma Bauer Schuetz.  She died of tuberculosis in 1927 in Boerne.

Ancestry.com. Registers of Patients at Naval Hospitals, 1812-1934 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.

Otto Wessely Obituary. San Antonio Light (San Antonio, Texas), 13 August 1962.

Registration State: Colorado; Registration County: Denver.

Texas Department of State Health Services; Austin Texas, USA.

Year: 1930; Census Place: San Antonio, Bexar, Texas; Page: 27B; Enumeration District: 0129; FHL microfilm: 2342031

Year: 1940; Census Place: Kerr, Texas; Roll: m-t0627-04086; Page: 2A; Enumeration District: 133-4.