Maria von Blücher's Corpus Christi
Subtitle: letters from the South Texas frontier, 1849-1879
By: by Maria von Blücher ; edited and annotated by Bruce S. Cheeseman ; foreword by Thomas H. Kreneck.
Contributors: Cheeseman, Bruce S.
Edition: 1st ed.
Series: Canseco-Keck history series ;; no. 5
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
Published: 2002
Place of publication: College Station
Language: eng
Number of pages: 292
Subjects: Blücher, Maria Augusta von, 1827-1893 -- Correspondence.; Women pioneers -- Texas -- Corpus Christi -- Correspondence.; Pioneers -- Texas -- Corpus Christi -- Correspondence.; German American women -- Texas -- Corpus Christi -- Correspondence.; Frontier and pioneer life -- Texas -- Corpus Christi.; German Americans -- Texas -- Corpus Christi -- Social life and customs -- 19th century.; Corpus Christi (Tex.) -- Social life and customs -- 19th century.; Corpus Christi (Tex.) -- Biography.
Genres: Correspondence.; Biography.
Description: "In 1849, a young German bride and her husband stepped off a ship in Corpus Christi Bay to establish their home in the new frontier settlement. For the next three decades Maria von Blucher wrote letters home describing the hardships of droughts and Indian and bandit raids, the chaos of the American Civil War, the discomforts of pioneer living, the joys and heartbreaks of family life, and the development of a town that her descendants would help to build into a thriving city.".

"Her letters record above all the woman's side of pioneer life. Although they offer insight into political events and economic developments in Germany, the United States, and South Texas, their greater value lies in the picture they paint of the deprivations, cruel hardships, sacrifice, and dangers faced in everyday life. Maria's letters stand as a personal account of the pioneer experience and are an elegant testimony to the role played by Germans in the settlement of South Texas.

They provide an intimate look inside the homes and ranches, the schools and farmyards, the stores and churches of early Corpus Christi. They examine families and friendships, communities, congregations, and social unions.".

"In Maria von Blucher's Corpus Christi Bruce S. Cheeseman has edited and annotated more than two hundred of the nine hundred letters that are held in the von Blucher family's papers on deposit at the Special Collections and Archives of the Mary and Jeff Bell Library at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes index.
Table of contents: title: Prussia; title: Passage to a new land : America; title: Early Corpus Christi : the 1850s; title: Civil War; title: Reconstruction and redemption : the 1870s; title: Epilogue.