March 2015

Intro by George Nielsen Serbin’s official beginning took place in 1860 when the government honored the community’s request and gave the little village a post office. From 1860 on Serbin experienced a modest growth until 1890 when the railroad builders bypassed Serbin and then began its decline and lost its status symbol—the post office—in 1909. […]

Singers and Storytellers (Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1961), 244-259, and later an abridged version was printed in Francis Edward Abernethy (ed.) The Folklore of Texan Cultures (Austin: The Encino Press, 1974), 290-300. For more information on Wendish folklore read Mato Kosyk’s letter found in the Johann August Urban entry in WENDS WHO BROKE THE

This article appeared in the April 2007 Newsletter of the Texas Wendish Heritage Society of Serbin, Texas. (www.texaswendish.org) Several people have raised the issue of using the black wedding gown as evidence for identifying Wends. I am cautious when it comes to fashion, and those who know me would say I am justified in doing

This article appeared in the October 2008 Newsletter of the Texas Wendish Heritage Society of Serbin, Texas. (www.texaswendish.org) Emilie (Woelfel) Michalk was born in Thorndale on January 31, 1898, to Nicholas and Magdalena Woelfel. Eighty-six years later, she told Edward Bernthal the story of her life. Although her heritage was German, she married a Wend,

This article appeared in the July 2009 Newsletter of the Texas Wendish Heritage Society of Serbin, Texas. (www.texaswendish.org) The postcard pictured here is part of the Anne Blasig Collection which was donated to the Wendish Museum in 1991 by Carolyn Walther. The collection, along with other significant items, is stored in the museum’s vault, which

This article appeared in the April 2012 Newsletter of the Texas Wendish Historical Society of Serbin, Texas. (www.texaswendish.org) Even though Johann Kilian is the one pastor who is readily identified as a Wendish clergyman in America, there were at least seven more who fit the classification. These are Hermann Kilian, Andreas Schmidt, Johann Pallmer, Gottfried

I began writing this sketch of my mother many years ago and came back to it recently – in time for my sister’s eighty-fifth birthday. Her immediate family had planned a celebration and she wanted something for the children and grandchildren to read about the environment in which she was raised. While I try to

This article appeared in the October 2013 Newsletter of the Texas Wendish Heritage Society of Serbin, Texas. (www.texaswendish.org) In an era of political correctness we have learned to be aware of how groups choose to be named. It was not always that way and on occasion. The very group that had been labeled with a

This article appeared in the October 2014 Newsletter of the Texas Wendish Heritage Society of Serbin, Texas. (www.texaswendish.org) A working definition of the word zombie would be “the walking dead.” If such a being or beings could actually exist, I suppose there could also be zombie ideas. These would be ideas that are not valid

This article appeared in the January 2015 Newsletter of the Texas Wendish Heritage Society of Serbin, Texas. (www.texaswendish.org) Robert Wuchatsch, a researcher of and writer about the Australian Wends, found about a dozen notices placed in the classified section of the 1854 Budissiner Nachrichten several months prior to the departure of the Ben Nevis migrants.