UT professor translates antique history of DeWitt County into English for the first time

  • An early 20th-century photo displaying the inside of the Nachrichten office in Hallettsville, the German newspaper C.H. Waltersdorf worked for while writing Geschichte von DeWitt County.
    An early 20th-century photo displaying the inside of the Nachrichten office in Hallettsville, the German newspaper C.H. Waltersdorf worked for while writing Geschichte von DeWitt County.

    More than 120 years ago, Lavaca County journalist C.H. Waltersdorf published Geschichte von DeWitt County, a detailed history of DeWitt County and its early settlements. A University of Texas professor recently translated the antique publication into English for the first time after Yorktown resident Beverly Bruns discovered the 52-page paperback in her grandmother’s belongings.

     

    As the last project tied to DeWitt County’s 175th-anniversary celebration, the county’s historical commission plans to publish Walterdorf’s History of Dewitt County in English in 2023. DeWitt County Historical Commission (DCHC) member Mary Gayle Brindley said the antique book provides in-depth histories on DeWitt County communities with a unique style that focuses on prominent leaders and their roles. 

     

    “Each town has its own article. (Waltersdorf) gets a lot more personal than typical history. He describes people, what they were doing, how they did what they did and their personalities,” said former publisher of The Cuero Record Glenn Rea. “It's not normal journalism.”

     

    DCHC project leaders said Walterdorf’s 123-year-old history of DeWitt County gives insight into various topics and local communities, including Yoakum, Cuero, Myersville, Concrete, Westhoff and the Sutton-Taylor feud. 

     

    “Our translator, James Kearney, said it was so fascinating to see how he describes the various characters, especially the leaders of these communities – even people we may have never heard of. There's one particular part about a woman in Ceuro that ran a boarding house and served meals…,” said Brindley. “He describes her in such interesting terms; it really adds a great deal of depth to the history of DeWitt County we have never seen before.”

     

    The translated content will debut in the March 2023 edition of the Texas State Historical Association’s Southwestern Historical Quarterly, which has been continuously published since 1897. DCHC Board members plan to select a publisher and have print copies of the local history book available for purchase at area museums in the second half of next year.