Family
by Debbie Holman
My maternal grandparents, Emil and Ellenora Beutnagel, were both deaf, though neither of them were born that way. Grandpa had a relapse of the mumps, and Grandma had had scarlet fever. They met at the Texas School for the Deaf in Austin. The stories my grandma told me about her experiences there-mainly having her hands hit with a ruler if she was "talking" and about getting to meet Helen Keller, but those are whole different stories.
Grandma (born in 1899) and Grandpa (born in 1902) married when she was 31, and he was 28. They lived for a few years in the Seguin area but built/moved into a rock house on homesteaded property in 1927-1928. Grandpa farmed and ranched on the land while Grandma was the housewife. At one time, near where the Paul S. Vogt Lodge is now on Dietz-Elkhorn, there was a cotton gin. When the owners decided to not gin cotton any longer, Grandpa had the winning bid on the materials, moving the wood and tin to the property and building the "big barn" out of it. The barn, though beginning to fall down on one side, still stands today.
My Mom, Lucille Beutnagel Holman, had been raised in a household with deaf parents and a grandmother who only spoke German to her. Mom and an older cousin, Caroline Voges Weichold, who lived on the adjoining property, would walk through the back fields to the old one-room Balcones School House. (Mom went to school there through eighth grade when the BISD was formed and took in eight community schools.)
Mom and Dad married at St. John Lutheran Church on November 26, 1952, also my grandparent's wedding anniversary. They lived in Boerne, moved to San Antonio for a few years, and moved back onto family property six weeks after I was born in 1962.
When Mom and Dad would go to San Antonio to work, I stayed with my grandparents. My first language was sign language. The days were busy; life was simple. In the spring and summer, we often worked in the garden or yard. On a hot summer afternoon, because the house had no air conditioning, you would have found me sitting in a metal washtub under a big oak tree in the front yard; Grandma, sitting in her chair, spraying me with a garden hose. I'm convinced all the mudpies I made then contributed to my cooking abilities now! In the winter, there was deer sausage to help make; my job was to stick the cinnamon-stick looking wooden tube into the casing (intestine) and check for holes. Just thinking of it brings a salty and unique flavor to my tastebuds. Because Grandma never learned to drive, we would walk back to the fields where Grandpa would be working the land with his John Deere tractor and equipment. Sometimes, Grandma and I would stop off by the pond on our way back, stick our bamboo poles with the bobbers on the end into the water, to see if we could catch a fish. I don't remember ever catching much, but we sure had fun.
Grandma and Grandpa led lives in which the world changed a great deal. Grandma passed away in January of 1991 . They had been married 61 years. Grandpa followed her in November of the same year. The last thing he signed to us the night he died was "ready to go home".
Because of the legacy my grandparents left behind, and the blessing it is to still live on the homesteaded property, I have the same sentiment at the end of a long day. I'm "ready to go home", too.
