Mrs. Allerkamp said nothing, but her sons, eager to see their sister married—and to almost anyone—threw reasons at her: ‘He’s a patriot. He has that profitable ferry. He’s strong in debate. And he’s … well … presentable.’ When the barrage was at its most intense, Mrs. Allerkamp stared at her daughter, aware that this marriage would be highly improper.
Franziska, taking strength from that silent stare, said no. She gave no reason. Drawing her arms close to her body as if protecting herself from an alien world, she shook her head, uttering only one word: ‘No.’ She did not say it with any undue emphasis or animosity; she simply rejected her fifth serious suitor and went about her work. She was now an expert spinner and a good weaver; she could sew clothes out of the cloth she made and form rough shoes out of the cowhides her brothers provided. She could also embroider seats for chairs and sew patterns on the dresses she made for herself and her mother. Best of all, she was an excellent cook, specializing in heavy meat dishes for the men and cookies for all festive occasions. These she liked to decorate with colored jellies and thumbprint designs, spending hours of an afternoon to make them works of art as well as delights to the taste. She had prevailed upon her brothers to carve a set of hollowed-out stars and crescents and ovals and zigzags out of oak, and with these she cut her cookies, so that when at last she brought a platter of them to the table, they shone with color and danced in lovely forms and patterns. And she always held the platter on the palms of her hands, as if she were a young goddess of the hearth, presenting her offerings to some pagan statue.
Yancey Quimper took his rejection with good spirit, half relieved that he had escaped the bondage that marriage often became in a frontier community. His failure to catch Franziska did not influence his business judgment, and he offered the Allerkamps just enough to encourage them to sell but not so much that he stood to lose. It was a good clean deal, and when it was concluded, with the two Allerkamp women weeping to think that they had lost a home in which they had known stern obligation but also much happiness, Quimper said: ‘I’d like to take possession as soon as possible. I have a buyer in mind.’
So in June of 1845 the five Allerkamps loaded all their goods on two ox wagons and set out for the hill country. When they reached Austin they heard exciting news: ‘A group of more than a hundred German immigrants stayed in the settlement at Neu Braunfels. But they wanted their own land. They’re planning to move into that area you surveyed. Near the Pedernales.’
Many parts of the hill country, that precious segment of Texas, would be German. Its public schools, among the first in Texas, would use German, and the songs sung by the men’s choruses at its great festivals would be German, and fathers would teach their daughters the poetry of their homeland, as Ludwig Allerkamp had taught his Franziska the delicate words that summarized their new life:
In that exquisite month of May
When all the buds were breaking,
I felt within my bosom
New life and love awaking.
So the German families from Neu Braunfels established the new town of Fredericksburg, which they named after a Prussian prince, and in quick order they built a struggling community in which English was almost never heard. In time it would become a superior town, with stores, watchmen and a good lodging place run by the Nimitz family; at first there was only one meeting house, but it was unique. Octagonal, it was affectionately called ‘The Coffee Grinder,’ and was shared amicably by all denominations.
The Allerkamps were delighted to have Fredericksburg only six miles from their farm, and even before the town was well started, Ludwig rode in to talk with the elders, purchasing from them a quarter-acre near the Nimitz farm. When the Fredericksburg people asked: ‘Are you going to sell your place out in the country?’ he replied: ‘Not at all. In here we’ll have a resting place for the women,’ and that is what it became, a tiny house with only one room and a row of beds. Now the Allerkamp women could come to town on Saturday in the family wagon, while the men rode in on horseback early Sunday.
In this way the Allerkamps obtained two homes, one in the country, one in town, while Otto Macnab still had none. In fact, he was about to surrender the homestead he did have, for with the Ascots gone, his only remaining companion was Yancey Quimper, and the more he inspected that man’s shady dealings the more convinced he became that Yancey was the kind of devious person with whom he did not care to associate: Life in Xavier County is finished for me. I better get going.
One morning he rode up to the Ferry and surprised Yancey: ‘You want to buy my land?’ Quimper made no false show of saying ‘Otto, you mustn’t leave!’ Instead, he jumped at the offer, and men lounging at the bar who overheard the transaction said: ‘Otto’s bein’ smart. He cain’t farm it hisself and he ain’t got no wife to tend it in his absence, so hell, he might as well pass it on to someone as’ll care for it.’ Quimper, aware of the young bachelor’s determination to be gone from these parts, drove a hard bargain and got the spread for sixteen cents an acre, and before the week passed he had sold it to immigrants from Alabama for a dollar-ten.
When Otto learned of the outrageous profit Quimper made, he merely shrugged, for he had lost interest in the land. Rootless, he drifted about the county seat, accepting the hospitality of Reverend Harrison at the school, but when Captain Garner rode in one morning with the news that Company M was being reactivated, Otto quickly volunteered, for he wanted something tangible to do. It was as if he realized that his destiny was not a settled home but the wild, roving life of a Ranger.
During the time when Otto was stumbling about, trying to find a home, the young nation of Texas was doing the same: it was bankrupt, it owed tremendous debts; in Mexico, General Santa Anna, magically restored to power yet again, refused to acknowledge that Texas had ever separated from Mexico, and there was violent talk about launching a real war to recover the lost province; and from Europe, France and England continued their seductive games.
Relations with the United States were as confused as ever, for when Texas had wanted annexation, the States had refused to accept her; and recently, when a worried United States invited her southern neighbor to join lest some other nation snatch her, Texas said no. Something had to be done or the fledgling nation might collapse.
At this juncture a small-town lawyer from the hills of Tennessee, a modest man without cant or pretension, stumbled his way into the White House as America’s first ‘dark horse,’ to the amazement of men much better qualified, such as Daniel Webster, John Calhoun, Henry Clay and Thomas Hart Benton. Future historians and men of prudent judgment when assessing the American Presidents would judge this modest but strong-willed man to have been one of our very ablest holders of that office, perhaps Number Six or Seven, behind such unchallenged giants as Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, and especially Roosevelt—Republican partisans nominating the first of that name; Democrats, the second.
It was said of James K. Polk: ‘He entered the White House determined to serve one term and accomplish two goals. Having attained these aims, he retired as he promised he would. No President can perform more capably.’
Polk’s two aims were simply stated: he wanted to bring Texas into the Union, regardless of the slavery issue or the feelings of Mexico; and he thirsted to extend American territorial sovereignty to the Pacific Ocean, even if that necessitated seizing vast portions of Mexico. To the pursuit of these aims and against venomous opposition, he dedicated his energies and his life itself, for soon after attaining them he died. Quiet, retiring in manner, he was remarkably daring, risking possible war with European powers as he hacked his way to the Pacific and provoking actual war with Mexico when he proclaimed that the Nueces Strip belonged to the new state of Texas, with the Rio Grande as its southern boundary.
He would bring into the United States more new territory than any other President, including even Thomas Jefferson with his extraordinary Louisiana Purchase. He was the personification of Manifest Destiny, and when he left the Whi
te House the outlines of the continental United States would be set, geographically and emotionally. Every nation, in time of great decision, should have in command a man of common sense like James K. Polk, for such men strengthen the character of a country.
When Polk won the 1844 presidential election on a program of annexation, the outgoing President, in obedience to the will of the nation, rushed through a joint resolution, offering Texas immediate annexation. But now Texas, certainly the sliest potential state ever to dicker with Congress on terms of entry, delayed acceptance of the belated invitation until Washington approved the draft constitution under which the new state would be governed. It was a document which reflected accurately the beliefs and prejudices of the Texians: no bank could be incorporated, never, under any circumstances; married women enjoyed full property rights; no clergyman, regardless of his church affiliation, could ever serve in the legislature. Two provisions enshrined principles to which Texians were committed: on the side of freedom, the governor would serve for only two years and not for more than four out of every six years; on the side of bondage, slavery was enthusiastically permitted. State Senator Yancey Quimper, campaigning for the constitution, shouted that it made Texas a nation within a nation, and when the vote was counted, it stood 4,000 in favor to 200 against.
And then the Texians demonstrated what a canny lot of horse traders they were. They wheedled the American Congress into awarding entry terms more favorable than those enjoyed by any other state, including two unique provisions: Texas and not the federal government would own all public lands, and the state would retain forever the right to divide into five smaller states if that proved attractive, each one to have two senators and a proportionate number of representatives.
But Congress, liberal in all else, issued a stern ultimatum on timing: Texas must accept this final offer before midnight, 29 December 1845, or annexation was killed. This did not faze the Texians, who waited till the last practical moment, the twenty-ninth, before voting acceptance, after which Senator Quimper roared: ‘Texas will now lead the United States to greatness.’
Ceremonial transfer of power did not occur until 19 February 1846, when a soldier started to lower the flag as President Anson Jones uttered these words: ‘The final act in this great drama is now performed. The Republic of Texas is no more.’
As the beautiful Lone Star fluttered downward, it was caught in the arms of Senator Quimper, who pressed it to his lips while tears streamed from his eyes. The free nation of Texas was no more, but the resonance from its brief, bankrupt, chaotic and often glorious existence would echo in Texas hearts forever.
… TASK FORCE
As I was certifying our year-end expense accounts I uncovered a fascinating bit of trivia. Quimper’s legal name was not Lorenzo, but Lawrence, and when I asked about this, he volunteered a revealing explanation: ‘It happened one morning like a bolt of lightning. I was a sophomore at UT, forty-five pounds overweight, bad complexion, making no time with the coeds and accomplishing zilch in general. I stared at the mirror and said: “Son, you are not a Lawrence. You’re more like a Lorenzo.” ’
‘Where’d you get that name?’ I asked, and he said without hesitation: ‘Heard it in a movie.’
‘About the Medici?’
‘Knew nothing about them. This was a thriller and Lorenzo was the villain. Played by Basil Rathbone, I think. Very slim, good at dueling, dynamite with the ladies. That’s how I fancied myself.’
‘Where did Il Magnifico come from?’
‘Girl named Mildred Jones. Freshman history major. Nuts about Italy. She gave me the name. And do you know what? I lost forty pounds. My face cleared up. I became manager of the football team. My entire life salvaged.’
‘What happened to Mildred Jones?’ I asked, and he said: ‘Never married. Teaches history at San Marcos. Each Valentine’s Day, I send her two pounds of Godiva chocolates.’
For our February meeting in Abilene, intellectual and religious capital of West Texas, the two young men on our staff, abetted by Rusk and Quimper, said: ‘We’ve had enough outside professors to address us. We want to hear at least once from a real Texan.’
I had no idea what they were talking about, and was further confused when they explained: ‘We want to invite this professor from Tulane in New Orleans.’
‘But you just said you were fed up with outside professors,’ but when they told me his name I had to admit that he was about the finest example of ‘a real Texan’ extant.
Diamond Jim Braden was a wiry, tense thirty-eight-year-old folk hero from Waco, and his name was doubly identified with Texas virtue. That is to say, he was a former football player. His father, also known as Diamond Jim, had played on those immortal Waco teams of the 1920s when scores were apt to be Waco 119-Opponents o.
The first Diamond Jim, much larger than his son, had been a legendary halfback, scoring so many touchdowns that the record books exulted. Volunteering quickly in World War II, he had risen to captain and had led his company through the roughest fighting in Italy, had been repeatedly decorated, and had died just as his battalion was preparing to capture Rome. ‘He behaved,’ as a Waco editorial said, ‘the way we expect our football heroes to behave.’
Now, there is nothing in Texas to which a man can aspire that is held in more reverence than skilled performance on the football field, especially a high school field, and Diamond Jim II, born in 1945 as a happy result of the compassionate leave granted soldiers with older wives, was reared on one simple truth: ‘Your father was the best halfback this town ever produced, and he proved it against the Germans.’ The second Diamond Jim might have been smaller than his illustrious father, but he had equal grit and determination, if that was possible. He, too, played halfback at Waco High, but fell short of equaling his father’s scoring records because competition among the high schools had been equalized. However, he was All-State and he did win a scholarship to the University of Texas, where under Darrell Royal, patron saint of Texas football, he won All-Conference honors and nomination by quite a few national selectors as Ail-American.
By such performance he had assured his future; insurance companies, banks, oil prospecting consortiums and a score of other businesses sought his services. Because nothing opened the doors of Texas business more effectively than for an older man to be able to say: ‘And this is our new star, Diamond Jim Braden, who scored those three touchdowns against Oklahoma.’ The young man was required to know nothing about insurance, banking or oil; he did have to know how to dress, how to smile, and how to marry some extremely pretty and wealthy young woman from Dallas, Houston or Midland.
Diamond Jim, however, followed a more individual route, ignoring established precedents except for wanting a beautiful cheerleader as his wife. Selecting early and with great determination a most attractive English major at the university, he had entered the long and tedious course leading to a professorship, which, with the help of his wife, who took a teaching job in Austin, he attained.
As a lad playing football he had been fascinated by the various parts of Texas to which his team traveled, and by the time he was a senior he was a confirmed geographer, even buying with his own funds books on the subject. He grew to love the dramatic manner in which the regions of Texas changed, and once when his team played a title game in Amarillo, he sought permission to stay behind and spend three days exploring the great empty flatness of West Texas, responding to its messages as if he had been afoot in some celebrated area of geographic greatness like the Swiss Alps. As early as age eighteen he could read the messages of the land, and they thrilled him.
At the university, after his athletic advisers had arranged what they called ‘a pushover schedule,’ he astonished them by enrolling for a geography major. Taking the toughest courses available, he drew down straight A’s and started compiling a notebook of hand-drawn analyses of Texas land types. His coaches, after their initial shock, supposed that their boy was training to go into the oil business, and with the prudence that marked t
he behavior of Texas coaches, they arranged for several legendary oilmen to make him offers of employment after graduation.
To their further consternation, he announced that he really wasn’t interested in oil. He wanted to be a geographer, and at this critical point two vitally important things happened that altered his life: he had the great good luck to run into Regent Lorenzo Quimper, who said: ‘Jim, if you really want to be a geographer, great. We can buy all the oilmen we want from the University of Oklahoma. But if it is geography, be the best. Take your graduate work at this top school in Worcester, Massachusetts. Clark University. They’ve forgotten more geography up there than anyone down here in Texas ever knew.’
When it was revealed that Diamond Jim lacked the funds to enter such a school, Quimper mysteriously provided a fellowship that enabled the football hero not only to study at Clark but to travel widely on field trips and explorations. There was no discussion as to repayment of the fund, only the admonition: ‘If you’re gonna do it, son, do it Texas style.’
Jim’s second experience was one which comes to many young people. He read a book that was so strikingly different from anything he had ever read before that it expanded his horizons. Imperial Texas had been written by D.W. Meinig, a cultural geographer from Syracuse University, a far distance from Texas, but it was so ingenious in its observations and provocative in its generalizations that from the moment Jim put it down, he knew he wanted to be such a geographer, showing the citizens of his state the subtle ways in which their land determined how they acted and governed themselves.
With his Ph.D. from Clark, Diamond Jim landed an instructorship at Lyndon Johnson’s old school, Southwest Texas State at San Marcos. From there he was promoted to an assistant professorship at TCU in Fort Worth, and he was obviously headed for a tenured professorship when he abruptly quit his job, took a lesser one in New Mexico, then one in Oklahoma, and finally a full professorship at Tulane, in New Orleans.
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