Category: Books

It Must Be The Noodles

Spitzenberger’s Book, It Must Be the Noodles, Just Out

It Must Be the Noodles is a whimsical recollection of Ray Spitzenberger’s memories of growing up Wendish in rural Central Texas, centered on the food and stories dished up at his mother’s kitchen table. From Mama facing off against her pugnacious rooster, Smarty Pants, to her homemade wine’s...

A Practical Grammer of Upper Sorbian

A Practical Grammar of Upper Sorbian (Wendish)

In the preface to the first edition, I stated that I hoped the grammar would serve at least two purposes: 1) as a self-teaching grammar for those people of Sorbian (Wendish) descent who wished to learn something about the language 2) as a grammar for a continuing education...

A Voyage of Hopes and Dreams

A Voyage of Hopes and Dreams

“A Voyage of Hopes and Dreams” is a work of historical fiction. The story is told by 18 year old Andreas recalling the trip he took 12 years prior with his family and other German Wendish emigrants seeking a new life in Texas. It chronicles the 1853 trip...

Passengers on the Ben Nevis

Passengers on the Ben Nevis and Their Families

“Passengers on the Ben Nevis and Their Families” has been an effort to decipher the document that has come to be known as the Ben Nevis List and put forth the most complete and accurate information about the Wendish families aboard the Ben Nevis. It also includes those...

Now Available: New Research Results

Few people are more strongly associated with the Sorbian emigration movement of the 19th century than Jan Kilian. In 1854 the pastor, born in Doehlen in Upper Lusatia, left his home country for Texas where, along with a large number of fellow Sorb immigrants, he founded the colony...

The Wendish Texans

The Institute of Texan Cultures has produced numerous books and exhibits about the various ethnic groups in the state, and The Institute’s annual Texas Folklife Festival further shows evidence of cultural diversity to hundreds of thousands of visitors. But, of all the ethnic groups represented, the Wends are...

In Search of a Home – Nineteenth-Century Wendish Immigration

In the previous century a large portion of the smallest of the Slavonic nations left their German homeland and migrated to three distant continents. The Wends, or Sorbs, were seeking–what? Fortune? Religious freedom? Land for their children to farm? George R. Nielsen, in this revised edition of his...

The Wends of Texas book cover

The Wends of Texas

An early examination, in chronological sequence, of the circumstances and events in the lives of the little known Texas pioneers, the Wends. The inclusion of an Appendix comprising the names and other information concerning the Wendish passengers who set sail in 1854 to find a new way of...