Witajcže K’nam
Jan Ernest Smoler and Jan Kilian were contemporaries, although not always friendly ones. As editor of a newspaper in Bautzen, Smoler published negative letters sent from the Serbin colony leading to years of tension between Smoler and Kilian. Thirteen years before the immigration to Texas, in 1841, Smoler and a...
One does not need to travel across the ocean to witness the beauty and craftsmanship of the old-world German churches. Driving for a few hours northwest of the Houston area will bring one to churches of the same beauty. Midway through the nineteenth century, many German immigrants fled...
See how one woman uses her noodle to keep her culture alive. In September, 2014, Texas Country Reporter visited the Wendish Museum and St. Paul Lutheran Church in Serbin, Texas, and returned for Wendish Fest. The episode was broadcast February 21-22, 2015 and features Hattie Schaustchick and Jack...
Robert Wuchatsch, a researcher and writer of 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. These little advertisements show once again that every bit of evidence, no matter...
By 1853 many Old Lutherans had left Europe for Australia and the United States. This article tells the story of thirty-five Wends who had initially planned to go to Australia, but in July of 1853, changed their minds and instead sailed to Galveston, Texas.1 The thirty-five were the...
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 and previously had been duly buried, but continue to emerge in...
On the morning of December 16, 1854, the immigration authorities at Galveston went out to meet the Ben Nevis, an English sailing ship, which had arrived in the harbor. On board they examined the papers and the physical condition of the five hundred some Wends who had come...
The New York Times recently published an article featuring the Texas Wendish Heritage Society. This article, written by Corrie MacLaggan for The Texas Tribune, is entitled The Joys of Being Wendish, Festival and All. Several festival attendees are briefly interviewed, including Evelyn Buchhorn, Russell Schwausch, Dwight Nitsche, George...
The optimism of the Wends as they left their European homeland for a new home in Texas was soon tempered by the recurrent deaths within their group. The first death took place in Hamburg on September 10 even before they boarded a ship. That death may not have...
The Wends or Sorbs of Germany are an originally Slavic group in what is now southern East Germany, in the area called Lusatia (Lausitz), around the cities of Bautzen and Cottbus. They were surrounded and infiltrated by the German expansion to the east in the middle ages, and...
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Museum Closed from December 21-January 4 for Holidays
December 7, 2024
Museum Closed from November 25-30 for Thanksgiving
November 14, 2024
Coffee Cake Baking Class at the Museum on November 23
October 22, 2024
Coffee Cake Baking Class at the Museum on November 3
October 19, 2024
Wendish Fest featured in Texas Monthly
October 10, 2024
TWHS Membership Meeting & Olde Tyme Wendish Sunday on October 20
October 9, 2024
Wendish Embossed Easter Egg Decorating Class on October 19
October 2, 2024
Thank You, Wendish Fest 2024 Sponsors!
September 20, 2024