The Texan Podcast - Interview: Justice Ken Wise on Christmas History in Texas

Episode Date: December 24, 2024

Merry Christmas!Justice Ken Wise joined Assistant Editor Rob Laucius to talk all about the historical celebrations of Christmas in the Lone Star State.

Well, howdy folks. Welcome back to another episode of the Texans podcast with Justice Ken Wise. Justice, how are you doing today? Doing great. Thanks for having me back. Absolutely. It's really good to have you back. We had a really good conversation over Thanksgiving about Thanksgiving-related Texas history, and that was a lot of fun. So it's really good now to be able to talk about some more Christmas-related history. Yeah. It is the season. It certainly is. So I am the Texans' assistant editor, Rob Lausches, and before we get into it, I'll introduce the Justice here a little bit. Justice Ken Wise serves on the 14th Court of Appeals in Houston.

He traces his ancestry back to the Republic of Texas in 1836 and has studied Texas history since his youth. He is also the president of the Texas State Historical Association and Texas Historical Foundation and is also an officer and trustee of the Texas Supreme Court Historical Society. Justice Wise also started the aptly named podcast Wise About Texas to preserve and promote Texas history of which we are big fans over here at the Texan. So it's a real honor to get to discuss Texas history with someone who's who's such a wealth of knowledge. It's always a pleasure to be with my friends at the Texan. Well we appreciate that well christmas is right around the corner um i'm certain it's as busy for y'all over there as it

is for us over here trying to get everything done in advance so do y'all does your family have any favorite christmas traditions oh gosh you know that's evolved over the years we're going to hit on some things in this podcast i would imagine that we used to do when I was smaller. But I'm blessed to have my parents still with me and my sister and brother-in-law and her family nearby. And my freshman college daughter is home from the University of Texas. So we're going to be together in various combinations over the next few days. So it's always, but we tend to make it up as we go along, honestly. That's fair. Absolutely. Yeah. My family is,

my dad's side of the family is Lithuanian. And so the traditional Christmas Eve dinner for Lithuanians is a 12 course meal of just fish dishes. It's kind of like the feast of seven fishes that Italians do. is a 12-course meal of just fish dishes. Ah, yeah. It's kind of like the Feast of Seven Fishes that Italians do. So that's always a fun thing around Christmas is all the different fish dishes you can fit. But we're a little bit more flexible with it, like bagels and lox might make it on one time

or sushi from H-E-B or something like that. Absolutely. So it's not extremely traditional Texas Christmas traditions, but there are a lot of very traditional Texas Christmas traditions from kind of all walks of life. So if we want to get into a first big one, the German Texans have contributed a lot of Texas Christmas traditions. And one of the biggest ones being the Christmas tree, which took off more in the 19th century. I know that in Fredericksburg, obviously, they have a lot of Christmas celebrations. So what can you talk about with the kind of traditions that the German Texans brought over

to Texas and to the country at large? Well, I like that you mentioned the Lithuanian Christmas because that's yet another example. Now, we didn't have that in the 1800s, but it's yet another example of things that immigrant groups brought to Texas. And someone out there will have to fact check me on this, but for the longest time, and I'm going to think to this day, Germans constitute the largest immigrant group to Texas. And they started coming in the 1830s and 40s and 50s and kept coming and kept coming. In fact, my mom's side of the family is part of that German immigration in the 19th century. And so naturally, a lot of German Christmas traditions would take hold in the parts of Texas those immigrants settled. You know, they came, the short version of that story is

there was a company that was formed called the Adelsverein, the Society for Protection of German Immigrants in Texas, and they bought some land way out on the frontier, beyond the frontier, actually, the Fisher Miller Land Grant, which was actually their second purchase. The first was around present-day industry Texas. The idea was that they were going to settle all these Germans way out in the hill country. They probably didn't have a real good idea of what they were facing out there, but they came by the thousands and came through Galveston, came through Indianola, they probably didn't have a real good idea of what they were facing out there. But they came by the thousands and came through Galveston, came through Indianola, made their way up to that area around and founded a bunch of towns that we know today,

Fredericksburg being probably the most popular known, that and New Braunfels. And so the German Christmas traditions are alive and well, particularly in those two cities. And back to my mom's side of family, we used to go to Fredericksburg in the 70s. And when there was one blinking light in the town, if the listeners can imagine that, especially if you've been there recently, one blinking light in German was spoken a lot more than English, but yeah, the Christmas tree tradition itself came from Germany is my understanding. And, uh, that's just one of the many German traditions that are still observed. And

Fredericksburg of course has, and New Braunfels both have great Christmas celebrations. And I don't want to leave out all the other towns in the Hill Country because I love them all. I'm just picking on two that are probably more familiar to your listeners. But, you know, that Market Platz in the middle of Fredericksburg is lit up with a huge tree and a huge candle with the wooden candle with the blades on the top and traditional German food, etc. It's really, really special. Absolutely. Yeah, I remember reading somewhere that the Christmas tree thing, it came to the

United States, I believe, through England, because in the late 19th century, a lot of English were very interested in the German ancestry, you know, this Germanic origins of the Anglo-Saxons after having been kind of imitating France for so long in their culture. And that kind of spread to the United States, you know, Anglo-Americans thinking, well, we can take some of these German traditions as well. And I wanted to bring up something else you brought up about that company that tried to settle Germans in Texas. I actually didn't know this for the longest time, but that was apparently a bunch of German noblemen, like German aristocrats, who wanted to bring Germans over

and kind of expand the German Empire's cultural reach, which it's strange to think that when the United States, it feels like a very modern country, you still, of course, had German nobility and a German empire that was interested in spreading its influence in Texas. Yeah, you're right about that. Those nobles, the problem with the nobility is you've got to have enough land to have your own estate. And Germany was in some upheaval during the middle 1800s. And one of the issues was there was a lot of titled individuals and not enough land. And so they needed some land.

And Texas, of course, was the place to do that. Plenty of pamphlets and books written by German travelers who came to Texas to kind of check it out. What they would write home sometimes wasn't entirely accurate, or maybe they hadn't really been to the places they described. And, of course, what I'm talking about is the Comanche Indians, because they were way, way out beyond any reasonable hope of any help if they got in trouble. But the happy ending to that story is the president, the second president of the Adelsverein, John Moisbach, negotiated a treaty with the Indians, with the Comanches, in the 1840s, and it really is the only treaty that ever really stuck. And they lived relatively peaceably, at least in the Fredericksburg area. Now, the people that ventured further than that had some trouble, but that's a very, very interesting part of Texas-Indian relations. Interesting. I had no idea about any of that. I understand that there were

interesting, the German Texans, for example, had some interesting relations with other groups. For example, they were less likely to, I think that they were less likely to own slaves as well in Texas. And there were kind of interesting relations there from what I remember reading about. I got the chance to write a newsletter about German Texas a few months ago. That was very enlightening. Yeah, it really is a fascinating story because they came, that land that I mentioned that was in the industry, they set up a place called Nassau Plantation and they did in fact own slaves. But as they went to the hill country, that was not part of their culture. And they weren't farming cotton up there. The economics of that wasn't going to work.

And they were craftsmen and tradesmen, stonemasons, all the things that you needed when you were up in the hill country. And so, yeah, it's a very unique, for that time particularly, a very unique society. One of the other funny stories I came across, I did an episode, there was a guy up there named Jacob Brodbeck who flew some sort of airship in 1865. And, of course, he gets almost no credit for that, which is a whole nother podcast. But one of the things that I came across when I was researching that was just all the various disciplines and things that these German craftsmen could do. But one of the communities that was founded up there was a community, they called themselves the Freethinkers, the German Freethinkers, but they're really communists. And so they were going to form this communist community up north of Fredericksburg, and it fell apart, as all communist societies will eventually do. But one of the references was it fell apart because there were significant arguments about

who was working harder. And I thought that was pretty funny. And the other comment in that same paragraph of that same source was that there was a high number of lawyers involved. So there you go. Too many lawyers, you'll always start to veer towards chaos, right? That's right. Yeah, it's interesting you bring up German craftsmanship because I did not know about this. I, unfortunately, have never had the opportunity to visit Fredericksburg for Christmas. But I have heard of the Fredericksburg, the German Christmas pyramid, you know, this massive wooden structure in the middle of Fredericksburg that I believe it says it's 26 feet tall.

And, you know, I was thinking, well, what is this? about it here. And it says that these little Christmas pyramids that the German Texans would make, you know, these little spinning wooden crafts came from a section of East Germany that had originally been known for mining silver ore. But the silver ore started to dry up. And so this place became known for wooden toy making. You know, I think there's kind of a stereotype of the Germans as craftsmen and toy makers and things like that. But this structure is, and I'm probably going to butcher this German, but it is called a Weihnachtspyramid or Christmas pyramid. And, yeah, it's apparently a real sight to behold in Fredericksburg.

You know, they do nativity scenes with these little toys. They would do Christmas scenes. And so it's just something really interesting of how they're able to preserve that cultural history. Well, we had one in our house. Oh, that's cool. No, one 26 feet tall. It was about, and every relative we visited during the time had one of those. And you put a candle in it and the blades would spin as the candle heated the air. And, of course, as a little kid, that's fascinating. And just that's the thing that Uncle Eddie destroys in Clark's house. Oh, destroys it in what again?

The little Christmas pyramid in the Griswold House. That's a very important nod to the German community in Christmas Vacation. That is really cool. That is really cool. Yeah, no, it's, you know, you think to yourself, oh, people in the past, right? They didn't have our kind of scientific knowledge. But, I mean, they're building little wooden structures using the heated air of a candle to, you know, make it spin. It's really impressive, honestly.

That's some very cool stuff. But then there's another big kind of immigrant community to Texas, or in some cases people who were there before Texas was, in the Latino, you know, Hispanic community, all of the Spanish Texans who contributed, Spanish and Mexican Texans, who contributed a lot to Texas Christmas culture. For example, the famous tradition of Christmas tamales, right, is a big Texas tradition for, you know, when people would gather for the big, you know, everybody's in town for the holidays and everybody can work on a big tamale-making party. You know, it's even, of course, non-Mexican Texans can still enjoy a big plate of tamales for Christmas. I remember my sister was texting my dad and I the other day about, you know, her holiday party at her office.

And my dad was like, where are the tamales? That's right. It isn't Christmas without them. Absolutely. Yeah, the tamale, I mean, that's one of the examples that I always use when I'm speaking to groups about the ability of Texas to blend cultures and create a Texan identity out of many cultures, which I wish, especially in modern times, pay more attention to because, you know, we should always seek to unite. And we're at a time where a lot of loud voices seek to divide us. And food is something that brings us all together. Anybody watching this video can tell that if I don't eat Tex-Mex once a week, I just function. But, you know, none of that belongs to, that all belongs to the Hispanic cultures of Texas.

And tamales, actually, you go way, way back before that. I mean, they were a Central American, or I guess the right word is Mesoamerican food that was eaten in one form or another, is eaten in one form or another throughout Mexico, Central, South America. food that was eaten in one form or another, is eaten in one form or another throughout Mexico, Central, South America. So, and if you really dig into that story, it's pretty interesting. There was a belief among the indigenous people of that entire continent that perhaps that corn was a gift from the gods to sustain human life.

And in some retellings, you hear that human life was created from corn. That's how significant it is. And, of course, tamales rely on corn masa. And so it's pretty interesting. You know, these are the kind of things I do in my spare time as I'm eating the tamales, is look up their origin. But it exists in many forms throughout different countries. And the Spanish learned about those and the conquistadors.

And of course, it's a staple of our Texas diet today. Absolutely. It's really not Christmas without one, I would say. My problem, of course, is that I could put down like 12 by myself, which, you know, only on Christmas will I allow myself to do that. Yeah, somebody needs to invent a low-carb tamale. As long as it still tastes good. People call them Texas energy bars. That's pretty good, yeah. No, I say you can't do without them at Christmas. No, it's true. It's interesting how that kind of thing happens with cultures where, you know, a certain word becomes a kind of synonym for food itself, right? Corn, for example, for Mesoamericans, for a lot of Europeans, you know, bread in a lot of European languages is kind of a synonym for food itself. Rice in a lot of East Asian cultures. It's interesting how that happens. You know, people, as you said, food brings people together. It's like the foundation of culture.

Something else interesting I found out about was that apparently the first Christmas in what is now the United States might have actually been celebrated by Spanish explorers in 1526 led by Panfilo de Narvaez, who arrived on Follett's Island and recorded their encounters with the Karankawa natives, who brought them supplies and helped them make it through the winter. Now, not everybody lived.

It's possible that by December 25th, only about 16 people survived. And unfortunately, some of them might have turned to cannibalism, which, you know, is an instance where food brings people together a little too much. But it's interesting to think there, you know, in Texas, how important the Spanish really were in the foundation of Texas. Obviously, we think about Mexico, but Spain really laid the foundations for a lot of stuff in Texas. I mean, even building the Alamo, right, a hundred years before it became what we know today. Well, the Spanish were the ones that colonized Texas initially, or at least attempted to do so starting about 1690. But the expedition, the Navarrese expedition that you referred to, one of the individuals on that expedition was Cabeza de Vaca, which I'm sure most of the listeners have heard

of. And he, what an amazing story that guy had. He had crossed, basically crossed the Gulf of Mexico on a raft he made out of wood covered with horse hide from the horses that they had to eat because they were starving to death on the beach in Florida. And they washed up. And we don't know, I don't think we know exactly where they washed up. I mean, you'll see eastern end of Galveston Island, some say across San Luis Pass to in Brazoria County. We don't know exactly. But yeah, they encountered the Caracas. And don't know exactly, but, yeah, they encountered Nicaraguas,

and if it was Christmas, they certainly would have celebrated it. And so all for Texas claiming the first Thanksgiving as we have on this podcast, and now we'll just claim the first Christmas celebration. Absolutely, absolutely. I think, you know, it's the lone star. It's the first, you know, state, all that. I think we should be able to take those claims. Yes, we'll get the letter and someone can prove us wrong.

There you go. We'll wait until they prove us wrong. We'll be innocent until proven guilty. As I say on my podcast, if it's not true, it ought to be. There you go. I like that. Well, speaking of, you know, innocence and guilt, innocence and guilt, there was an interesting story out of 1927 in Christmas that I think is worth bringing up about Texas. Because I don't know if any other state has had a person try to rob a bank while dressed as Santa Claus in Cisco, Texas. So do you want to speak a little bit on the Santa Claus bank robbery and all of the craziness therein? Well, I will. You know, we kind of joke about it now, but it was a pretty ugly situation. But there was a guy named Ratliff, I think it was Ratliff, who wanted to organize a bank robbery. And this is, like you like you said 1927 and during this time

banks were getting robbed all over Texas and the Texas Bankers Association had actually put a bounty on the heads of anybody robbing a bank and So citizens were very tuned in to the fact that if there's a bank robbery occurring they want to get in on the action and collect that bounty. And so Ratliff got a gang of folks together, and they were going to rob the bank in Cisco. And so he, Ratliff, was known in Cisco, and he would be recognized, dressed up in a Santa outfit, and was walking down the street toward the bank. And of course, what happens when you walk through a small town in a Santa Claus outfit? Not that I do so very often, but kids are going to follow you and try to say, hey, Santa, hey, Santa.

And so Ratliff obviously wasn't exactly a genius. But he walks into the bank dressed as Santa Claus with the other gang members. They rob the bank. They get some cash. They get some bonds, and they try to take off. The problem is it was a bank robbery in 1927, so the citizens of Cisco came to the rescue and over 200 bullets, and the number 200 was an estimate based on the number of holes in the bank, bullet holes in the bank. It was probably more than 200, but it was a huge gunfight. They took hostages. Some of the bandits were wounded. Some citizens were wounded. One of the bandits killed two police officers. Oh, man. They tried to make their escape, and they ended up getting down the road a ways until they ran into a Texas Ranger named

Cy Bradford who just started firing and got a couple of them. They arrested the ones that lived and they immediately, well, they identified the one gang member who killed the two officers. He was sentenced to death and executed. Ratliff was imprisoned. And then somebody, I think some, I'm sorry, my recollection's imperfect, but I think somebody and he ended up getting charged for murder and sentenced to death. He tried to flee insanity and act insane. And he actually convinced his prison guards that he was insane. And a little while after convincing them, and they started talking about how crazy he was,

he attempted to escape. So he had a miraculous return to sanity to escape prison. But eventually a lynch mob dragged Ratliff out of jail and strung him up. Wow. It was an ugly scene. But yeah, don't, you know, if you're going to rob someplace and you want to be inconspicuous, you probably want to be inconspicuous and Santa Claus is not the way to do it. So we learned that at least from that incident.

Yeah, no, that sounds, it is, as you pointed out, it's a funny story at first, but unfortunately, you know, there's a lot of violence involved. And, you know, it's a crazy time in the 1920s with all of the, for example, I didn't know anything about the tequila smugglers of Texas during the 1920s that did a lot of stuff there. But something else I also found out about this Santa Claus bank robbery is that Ratliff, the guy who dressed up as Santa Claus, had recently been pardoned by Governor Ma Ferguson for, I believe, for robbing another bank. And Ma Ferguson was famous during her time as governor for issuing pardons. I believe over 4,000 pardons as governor were issued, which there was a lot of accusation of pay to play and saying that the Fergusons, because her husband, James Ferguson, was also governor for a time. And there was all these accusations of corruption and pay to play between them. And I think that stuff is just fascinating.

No, that was just a very interesting time. And the prohibition issue, people that were for the sale of alcohol in Texas were called the wets. And the people in favor of prohibition were called the dries. And those were the two political parties for a long time affected, the Wets and the Drys. And, yeah, you're correct about the Fergusons. Ma Ferguson issued over 4,000 pardons. And it is a fascinating thing. Now, if I recall correctly, wasn't she also the governor who authorized the Texas Rangers to kill Bonnie and Clyde?

Was she the one who did that? Well, she was the governor when they, yes, when they brought Frank Hamer out of retirement to track down Bonnie and Clyde. He was actually not, he had retired from the Rangers, but he had been a Ranger. And he was employed by the prison system and given a highway patrol commission. So he would be a law enforcement officer, but he's a special agent for the prison system. And then he recruited his old friend, Manny Galt, who was also a former Ranger to, and they tracked down Bonnie and Clyde. That isn't, it's what a time to be alive, right? I'm glad that we don't have quite as big of a organized crime problem now as we did a hundred years ago. But I did want to ask one more

question. You mentioned about prohibition. Is it true that the German Texans were actually a lot more resistant to prohibition at the time compared to, for example, a lot of the Anglo-Texan dries? Well, I don't know about that, but I will say this. As a half-German, where Germans are, there will be beer. Absolutely. You can say not to make it, but we're going to make it. Absolutely, absolutely. Well, here's hoping that in Christmas we can all celebrate with some nice.

I don't know if you've tried the new Shiner or I don't know if it's new, but the Shiner holiday cheer beer with peaches and pecans in it. I enjoy it quite a bit. I haven't had that yet, but now you've given me a good project for the week. Absolutely. Got to get got to get ready for the holidays. Well, thank you very much for joining us, Justice. It's always great to talk with you. great to explore more about texas history um and i hope that you have a fantastic holiday very merry christmas well you too merry christmas to everybody at the texan and thanks so much for having me on uh i listen to y'all every day in one form or another so it's great to be a part of it. Thank you very much. We appreciate it. And for everybody out there who's listening, please go check out Wise About Texas. It's a fantastic podcast covering everything from presidential elections during Texas time as an independent republic to talking about, for example, I believe you did an episode on firearms in Texas.

That was interesting. There's all kinds of Texas history that's worth checking out. So thank you very much for joining us. And to everybody out there, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy Holidays in general, and we'll see you all next time. See you down the road.