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Richard
Gaertner's Story
by Murray Montgomery
"Gaertner ...
can remember things from the past that folks half his age would probably have
a hard time recalling. His memory is sharp and clear, so much so that he can recall
the more insignificant details of an event that most people would tend to forget." |  |
Every
town needs a storyteller and Moulton is fortunate to have a mighty good one in
a feisty fellow named Richard Gaertner.
Born on Feb. 4, 1908, this friendly
96 year-old gentleman was raised in Lavaca County, most of his life being spent
on the family farm some five miles northeast of Moulton. He moved to town a few
years ago and is now residing at Shady Oaks Nursing and Rehab.
His social
life is a weekly routine – on Monday evenings he drives his minivan over to Flatonia
to play bingo at the legion hall with his “lady friend,” then on Thursdays and
Fridays he plays more bingo in Moulton at the KC Hall and the American Legion
Hall. “I try to spend only five dollars at Bingo, I just go to visit,” says Gaertner.
After dinner on Fridays, he plays dominoes with some other fellows at the Main
Bar.
Gaertner, a confirmed bachelor, can remember things from the past
that folks half his age would probably have a hard time recalling. His memory
is sharp and clear, so much so that he can recall the more insignificant details
of an event that most people would tend to forget.
In a recent interview,
he was asked a number of questions about how it was to grow up in the Moulton
area. His eyes seemed to take on an added sparkle when he began to spin yarns
about the things that happened in his life years ago. |
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Richard
Gaertner
Photo courtesy Murray Montgomery |
“When
our family first came over from the old country,” said Gaertner, “they wanted
to settle over in High
Hill, which is located in Fayette County. But the people there were all Germans
and we were Czechs. The Germans wouldn’t allow no Czechs to live there back then
so our family changed their name from Zahradnick to Gaertner and that’s the name
I grew up with.”
Richard’s branch of the family founded their farm, in
Lavaca County, back in 1880 – they started out with 200 acres which they had planned
to purchase for six dollars an acre. But Richard recalled that a fellow from Oklahoma
said he had a prior claim on the land and the Gaertner’s had to pay twelve dollars
per acre to get it. Over the years the family acquired more land and the farm
grew to 500 acres.
There were five children in the family – Richard had
three brothers and one sister – he has outlived them all.
The Gaertner’s
raised cotton as their main crop, along with corn, and some wheat for making flour;
they also maintained a garden to help feed the family. The kids had to do their
share of the work and there was plenty to do. But young Richard didn’t care much
for picking cotton. You get the impression that he would rather have been fishing
or swimming with the neighbor kids over at Rocky Creek or the North Fork of the
Lavaca River.
On Saturdays, as was the case with most country folk, the
Gaertner family would go to town. “Momma was in charge of the buying and selling,”
said Richard. “She would buy the basics such as sugar, flour, and coffee, while
making some money selling eggs.” His daddy would go to the saloon and drink beer.
Richard recalls that the town was full of people on Saturdays back then (around
1914). “There were so many people you couldn’t hardly walk around, it isn’t like
that anymore.”
Cotton was big business in those days. Gaertner remembers
that in 1920 they made 40 bales, each bale weighed 500 pounds. They would take
the cotton to the gin in Moulton and collect their money. At the time, cotton
was going for 45 cents a pound. “Papa kept bringing more bales and each time the
price would drop. It finally was down to 6 cents a pound and they told Papa not
to bring anymore.”
Richard went to the Baursville School. But he couldn’t
go ‘til the cotton was all picked. He had to walk three miles to school. The classes
only went as high as the 8th grade. “The first two years I didn’t learn anything,
but then I got where I knew as much as the rest of them,” he said.
Growing
up in Moulton, the railroad was a big part of Richard Gaertner’s life and he has
many stories on that subject as well. His mother seems to have had a considerable
influence on his life and it was she who told him many of the tales that he shares
today.
One of Momma’s stories was about a railroad crew that was coming
from Flatonia laying track towards Moulton when a local farmer confronted them.
The farmer had two big sons and each was armed with a shotgun. The old farmer
declared that the railroad would never cross his land.
The crew stopped
work while the foreman tried to figure out a way to get the tracks down. He came
up with a plan and waited until dusk when the farmer and his boys went home. The
foreman hired another crew and started to cross from the south with the strategy
being to complete the job after meeting the workers coming from the north – having
the entire track laid before sunup. The job wasn’t quite complete when the farmer
showed up, but after seeing that the work was nearly finished; he just shook his
head and went home.
Gaertner has seen many changes over the years. He
saw the coming of the automobile and airplane. “I saw my first airplane in 1918,”
he said. “Another kid and me were riding bicycles when we saw the plane come over.
It was flying low and then landed. We finally found it in a pasture and there
was a bunch of people there. It looked like a picnic with so many people. Them
two fellows on the plane were going from Houston to San Antonio when they ran
out of gas and had to land.”
When the automobile arrived in Lavaca County,
Gaertner’s family was among the first to purchase a new Model-T Ford. “Back then
the county gave each car an identification number, Dr. Guenther had number one,
and our family had number 157,” he said. “There weren’t any real roads back in
them days, only ruts, and when it rained a lot those ruts would fill up with water,
that made it nearly impossible to drive.”
It seems as though the Gaertner’s
new car had a 60-inch wide wheelbase, and the ruts were only 56 inches in width.
But Richard’s daddy found a way to solve that problem. “Papa heard of this fellow
over in Breslau who had a junked car with a 56- inch frame,” said Gaertner. “Papa
bought the frame and put our car body on it, after that we could drive in them
ruts just like everybody else.”
Horses were scared to death of the automobiles
according to Richard. He remembers one time when he saw a car pass by a wagon,
and the horses became so wild that the fellow on the wagon jumped off and ran
for the woods – the man had never seen a car before.
Richard Gaertner was
raised in the Catholic faith but he doesn’t get to church much these days because
he doesn’t like to take his hat off. Seems as if he removed his hat once while
touring Europe and because he doesn’t have any hair on top, he caught a bad head
cold. “Now I never take my hat off,” he said. “I even wear it when I eat and I
can’t go to church because you have to take your hat off in church.”
In
1980, Richard and the other family members decided to sell the farm. But before
they would agree to the transaction, it had to be understood that they could still
live on the place. The buyer agreed, and two acres was fenced off – Richard and
his brother, “Rudy,” lived together there. And even though he lives in town now,
Richard still drives to the country and checks on the home place every Monday
before he goes to Flatonia for bingo.
After the farm was sold, he decided to do some traveling and see the country.
First he drove to Las Vegas several times. “It took me two days to get there,”
said Richard. Then he commenced to tour the world, with travels to Europe, Africa,
Germany, France, Switzerland, and other countries as well. Once he flew out to
California and caught a ship to Alaska. He also took a ship from Puerto Rico and
visited South America. Richard really enjoyed his trip through the Panama Canal.
Before
the interview with Richard concluded, he just had to share one more tale. This
one must have been his favorite, by far, because the story made him laugh so hard
that he had a tough time finishing it.
Again, the story was about an event
concerning the railroad in Lavaca County. According to Richard, there once was
a fellow working at the railroad “roundhouse” in Yoakum.
The man left
work a little early one day and went home to get some rest. He crawled in bed
with his wife and started to go to sleep. But she shook him and said that she
was feeling bad and needed him to go get some medicine from the drug store. Being
a considerate husband, he got up, put on a pair of pants and went to buy the medicine.
“When he reached in his pocket to pay for that medicine, he pulled out a handful
of money and it wasn’t his,” said Gaertner, “he had somebody else’s pants on.”
The story goes that they never did find out who those pants belonged to, or where
the other fellow was – he might even have been hiding under the bed when the husband
came home.
“That’s a true story,” Gaertner laughingly explained. “I had
kinfolk working in that roundhouse and they told me it was true.” |
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