Ernest's ashes were scattered at the Spellmann Cemetery along with his wife, Elsie.
EDITOR'S NOTE — This is the 82nd of a series of articles marking Kerr County's sesquicentennial.
By Irene Van Winkle
West Kerr Current
Ernest Frederick "Uncle Duder" Duderstadt (1908-1993) was an infant when his parents Tom and "Lizzie" moved to Mountain Home in 1908. They arrived at the 3,000-acre ranch, traveling in a two-horse buggy from Karnes County in the heat of August, with a colt named Spike following behind.
Ernest grew up at that ranch, and later in life he contributed more than 50 years to the world of Boy Scouts in West Kerr County and elsewhere.
The Duderstadt clan recently paid tribute to Ernest, and his wife, Elsie Buss (who passed away last month), gathering in two locations of personal importance to the family.
Their son, Culver, said that Ernest practically built Bear Creek Scout Reservation in its early days, laying rock for the original dining halls and erecting the faux- "village" near the entrance.
Building was in Ernest's blood, a trade going back to his great-grandfather who first stepped onto Texas soil. Culver said there is a city in former West Germany named Duderstadt, where part of the Berlin Wall ran through, and where many people escaped from East Germany.
In a recent book compiled by relatives, the first historical mention of the town was in the year 929 A. D. "However, historians say, according to finding of recent excavations, that this area was inhabited as early as the Last Ice Age."
During the rule of Henry I, Duke of Saxony, in the early 10th century, the town became a walled military installation, complete with a castle, towers, rock gates and surrounded by a moat. Another town mentioned in the book that became similarly fortified was called "Grona," another well-known name in the Hill Country.
By 1521, under the possession of the Archibishop of Mains, the city had grown and become a thriving trade center. The 30 Years' War, however, reduced it to a small agricultural town. Famines, fires and disease also wracked the city through the centuries, but many examples of Roman, Gothic and Renaissance construction still remain. In 1802, Duderstadt became part of Prussia, and in 1816, it was attached to the Province of Hanover, of which it is now the chief city.
There are several theories about why the Duderstadts came to America. One was because they did not want their sons to serve in the army under a new regime, and another was because the government had confiscated much of their property.
Ernest's great-grandfather, Baron Von (John) Andreas Duderstadt (1815-1901), married Sophie Dickehut (1818-1900) and their third child, born in Andreas's home town of Luettgenrode, was Friedrich "Fred" Christoph Heinrich (1851-1938.)
According to the family history, Andreas first came to America in 1854. Landing at Indianola, he went to Gonzalez County near the future site of Nopal (a town that no longer exists). He sent word to his younger brother, Frederick, who arrived later that year and settled his family in De Witt County.
Andreas's family did not arrive until either late in 1857 (the year Andreas applied for American citizenship) or early 1858, after he had built a proper stone house, and Sophie's mother had died. Andreas had bought land from George Culver Tennille, and then returned to Prussia to prepare for the move.
His family, which included Fred and his two siblings — Johanna, 12, and John, 9 — came by ship, stopping along the way in Florida, where, Fred later recalled, they got a taste of the oranges that were brought aboard.
Disembarking in Indianola, the family traveled 100 miles inland by oxcart and wagon, so laden with goods that Andreas and John had to walk.
In 1859, another son, Henry, was born. By 1861, records show Andreas owned more than 300 acres in Gonzalez County. Besides ranching and farming, Andreas worked mainly as a stone mason. Often acquiring materials from Mexico, he built many old structures, including the county's first courthouse, as well as a courthouse in New Braunfels.
The family book gave an account by Mrs. J.B. Sorenson of Taylor, Texas, who knew the couple.
"Mr. Duderstadt was low and heavy set, but not fat," she said. "He often had asthma real bad ... He would charge two cows and two calves for building a chimney. ... He recalled how once, when he and other freighters, returning from San Antonio, were camping overnight in the brush, they were aroused by sounds of robbers or Indians approaching. Mr. Duderstadt quickly grabbed his bag of money and flung it into the cold ashes of the campfire. His presence of mind saved the money and kept the men from harm."
Mrs. Anderson mentioned that Sophie often felt lonely and socially isolated. She apparently had difficulty adjusting to her new surroundings and spoke only German. Andreas and Sophie eventually moved to Yorktown, where they were buried in a Lutheran cemetery.
As a boy, Fred took up ranching, and then ran cattle along the Old Chisholm Trail for three years. He worked in Wichita, Kan. for two years to avoid getting embroiled in a bloody post-Civil War feud brewing around Karnes Co. between the Sutton and Taylor clans.
Eventually, he ran a spread called the "Weaning Ranch" in Karnes County, where his son, Thomas, grew up.
They hosted many friends and visitors there, including John Wesley Hardin and his cousins, the Clements brothers. It was during one of Fred's dealings with them, herding cattle, that Hardin and the Clements ran into gunplay in which several Mexicans were killed, and for which Hardin was sent to the penitentiary.
Hardin's wife Jane and three children stayed nearby and she worked for the Duderstadts.
Ruth Duderstadt Love wrote about Fred's life in the 1986 Kerr County Album. She told a story about a time when Fred was guarding a chuckwagon after sending his cowboys out, and some hungry Indians arrived.
"Fred gave (their chief) a quarter of beef from his chuck wagon, and ... they immediately began eating it raw. By the time Fred was ready to move out, the Indians had finished eating the entire quarter of beef. Several months later in Wichita, an Indian stopped Fred on the street and handed him a cigar. When Fred asked the reason for the cigar, the Indian replied, ‘My men hungry. You give 'em meat, I give you cigar.'"
After returning to Texas from Wichita, Fred married Henrietta Tennille, the daughter of the man from whom his father had bought land. They had six children including Nancy, George, Frederick Eugene and Thomas "Tom" Andrew (born in 1885). Two others, Sally and John, died as youngsters.
Tom married Elizabeth Spellmann, whose pioneer family had immigrated from Westphalia, Germany. Their arrival in Kerr County came soon after that of his father, and of his brother, George, who came with his wife, Stella Elkins, and their children (Leona, Elna, Lois and James), settling at the Reservation Community in 1905.
Tom's son, Ernest, attended Sunset School in Mountain Home, and then graduated from Tivy High School in 1927. He went to Texas A&M briefly, but because of a football injury, left to work livestock in Yancy, where he leased a place near his parents.
He married Elsie Buss in 1931, after meeting her on her rural mail route, and they had four sons and a daughter: Tommie Rae, Ernest Keith, Fred Jerome, Kenneth Paul and Culver Lynn. Later, they also helped raise a cousin, Betty Jo Buss, as well as James A. Black, an orphan from Kentucky. James had been a Boy Scout at Indian Creek, and when his adoptive parents were unwilling to raise him, he requested to live with "Uncle Duder." He is now a successful accountant living in Houston.
In 1934, a flood wiped out Ernest and Elsie. Culver said they barely escaped with their lives in the middle of the night.
"They set out with the babies and headed eight miles to his parents' place," he said. "They walked, swam and tried to keep from drowning in the high water. Later, when they went back to look, the house was gone."
Looking for ways to support his family, Ernest drove a gas truck when they lived in Hondo, owned a blacksmith shop in Utopia, and even ran a hatchery. By 1949, after moving to Cherry Valley, he was a ranch foreman for a Houston man. In 1952, they moved to Leakey, and ran "Duder's Cafe," until 1956.
Ernest, meanwhile, became interested in scouting, and on Dec. 29, 1953, the family made history.
"Dad and the four of us boys all got our Eagle Scout awards on the same day," Culver said. "That's the first, and I believe, the only time in Boy Scout history that a father and four sons all became Eagle Scouts at the same time. It was in all the papers, and even Texas Governor Allan Shivers called up to congratulate us."
The ceremony took place at the Uvalde High School auditorium with Shivers, and a future Texas governor, Dolph Briscoe, in attendance.
By 1956, Ernest found work with the BSA as director at Camp Fawcett in Barksdale, while helping to prepare Indian Creek Scout Camp. He also served at Camp McGimsey in San Antonio, and then Indian Creek.
Indian Creek Scout Camp in Ingram preceded Bear Creek Scout Reservation, and its patches dated 1938-1974 are in a case at Bear Creek's camp headquarters. Indian Creek Camp was located directly across the Guadalupe River looking south from the Point Theater, but it is now in private hands.
Culver recalled ceremonies for induction into the Order of the Arrow on Friday nights between the camp and the old crossing at Johnson Creek.
"There would be canoes with scouts holding torches coming up the river, and people would line up all along the banks to watch. You couldn't find a parking space, so many used to come."
BCSR's early days is rooted with some famous names. In the 1940s, the land was owned by Eddie Rickenbacker (1890-1973), who became world-famous as America's top flying ace (22 kills) in World War I. He also owned Indianapolis Speedway (1927-45) and ran Eastern Air Lines (1938-59).
Several miles past Hunt, Rickenbacker owned a big piece of land (600-700 acres) along with a large home where he entertained many famous people like Arthur Godfrey, Culver said. The house, as far as he knew, is still standing. Rickenbacker put up a big fence and then imported game for hunting. He donated nearly 1,100 acres where the game park existed and the land behind it to the scouts.
The people who worked at Indian Creek camp called it "Slickwire," Curtis said. Eventually, Rickenbacker had decided that imported game hunting and scouts didn't mesh. The scouts sold Indian Creek camp, and separately sold Slickwire to the Friedrich family (who owned the air conditioning company in San Antonio) for enough to pay for the front part of the Hunt property. They developed two camps — Camp Friedrich and Rickenbacker Camp.
There had been an experiment at the property in West Kerr County, Culver said, to cool the waters of Bear Creek by installing refrigeration devices there, in hopes of propagating trout for fishing. The idea went "downriver" along with the trout, and remnants of the project have since disappeared.
BCSR operates about 1,000 acres, filled with camp sites, along with several residences, and plenty of high and low places where the creek winds its way eventually into the Guadalupe River. The paved roads include Mess Hall Road, and in the farther reaches, there is Duderstadt Byway Road. When BCSR opened in 1964, its patches read Rickenbacker Scout Camp; in 1965, it was changed to Bear Creek/Rickenbacker Ranch, and in 1966, it was under the umbrella of the Alamo Area Council.
"In the old days," Culver said, "you'd be roughing it. There were no facilities, just an outhouse, and a place to clean up with cold running water."
The other side of the valley was where the programs took place, and camping took place in the hills on either side, and both ends had dining halls. Now the scouts use the front side for their camping, and the back end is used for training.
After Ernest retired in 1983 and moved to Seguin, he'd still come up and visit and sit by the campfires, Culver said.
Culver is married to Elaine Nichols, who was a childhood classmate, and they live in Austin. Elaine's parents were Leroy and Susie Davis Nichols, and her maternal grandparents were Bob Davis (a judge in Uvalde Co.) and Anne Lee Auld, whose family ranched out near the Divide. They have five children between them from previous marriages.
Since January, 2006, Curtis Grimm has been the ranger at BCSR, where he lives year-round with his son Connor, 11, a Hunt School student. Grimm said he drove trucks for 13 years, got overweight and suffered from high blood pressure. Since taking the ranger job, he said he's lost 50 pounds, and his blood pressure is healthy.
"I wish I'd started here long ago," he quipped. "Out here, I am so happy — I've got everything I need."
He said he was honored to step into the place that ‘Uncle Duder' built.
There is a Spellmann family cemetery at Nopal where the Duderstadt descendants took Ernest's and Elsie's ashes to scatter last weekend. Fittingly, their next stop was on a high cliff at BCSR, overlooking the place Ernest had loved so much.
EDITOR'S NOTE — This is the 82nd of a series of articles marking Kerr County's sesquicentennial.
By Irene Van Winkle
West Kerr Current
Ernest Frederick "Uncle Duder" Duderstadt (1908-1993) was an infant when his parents Tom and "Lizzie" moved to Mountain Home in 1908. They arrived at the 3,000-acre ranch, traveling in a two-horse buggy from Karnes County in the heat of August, with a colt named Spike following behind.
Ernest grew up at that ranch, and later in life he contributed more than 50 years to the world of Boy Scouts in West Kerr County and elsewhere.
The Duderstadt clan recently paid tribute to Ernest, and his wife, Elsie Buss (who passed away last month), gathering in two locations of personal importance to the family.
Their son, Culver, said that Ernest practically built Bear Creek Scout Reservation in its early days, laying rock for the original dining halls and erecting the faux- "village" near the entrance.
Building was in Ernest's blood, a trade going back to his great-grandfather who first stepped onto Texas soil. Culver said there is a city in former West Germany named Duderstadt, where part of the Berlin Wall ran through, and where many people escaped from East Germany.
In a recent book compiled by relatives, the first historical mention of the town was in the year 929 A. D. "However, historians say, according to finding of recent excavations, that this area was inhabited as early as the Last Ice Age."
During the rule of Henry I, Duke of Saxony, in the early 10th century, the town became a walled military installation, complete with a castle, towers, rock gates and surrounded by a moat. Another town mentioned in the book that became similarly fortified was called "Grona," another well-known name in the Hill Country.
By 1521, under the possession of the Archibishop of Mains, the city had grown and become a thriving trade center. The 30 Years' War, however, reduced it to a small agricultural town. Famines, fires and disease also wracked the city through the centuries, but many examples of Roman, Gothic and Renaissance construction still remain. In 1802, Duderstadt became part of Prussia, and in 1816, it was attached to the Province of Hanover, of which it is now the chief city.
There are several theories about why the Duderstadts came to America. One was because they did not want their sons to serve in the army under a new regime, and another was because the government had confiscated much of their property.
Ernest's great-grandfather, Baron Von (John) Andreas Duderstadt (1815-1901), married Sophie Dickehut (1818-1900) and their third child, born in Andreas's home town of Luettgenrode, was Friedrich "Fred" Christoph Heinrich (1851-1938.)
According to the family history, Andreas first came to America in 1854. Landing at Indianola, he went to Gonzalez County near the future site of Nopal (a town that no longer exists). He sent word to his younger brother, Frederick, who arrived later that year and settled his family in De Witt County.
Andreas's family did not arrive until either late in 1857 (the year Andreas applied for American citizenship) or early 1858, after he had built a proper stone house, and Sophie's mother had died. Andreas had bought land from George Culver Tennille, and then returned to Prussia to prepare for the move.
His family, which included Fred and his two siblings — Johanna, 12, and John, 9 — came by ship, stopping along the way in Florida, where, Fred later recalled, they got a taste of the oranges that were brought aboard.
Disembarking in Indianola, the family traveled 100 miles inland by oxcart and wagon, so laden with goods that Andreas and John had to walk.
In 1859, another son, Henry, was born. By 1861, records show Andreas owned more than 300 acres in Gonzalez County. Besides ranching and farming, Andreas worked mainly as a stone mason. Often acquiring materials from Mexico, he built many old structures, including the county's first courthouse, as well as a courthouse in New Braunfels.
The family book gave an account by Mrs. J.B. Sorenson of Taylor, Texas, who knew the couple.
"Mr. Duderstadt was low and heavy set, but not fat," she said. "He often had asthma real bad ... He would charge two cows and two calves for building a chimney. ... He recalled how once, when he and other freighters, returning from San Antonio, were camping overnight in the brush, they were aroused by sounds of robbers or Indians approaching. Mr. Duderstadt quickly grabbed his bag of money and flung it into the cold ashes of the campfire. His presence of mind saved the money and kept the men from harm."
Mrs. Anderson mentioned that Sophie often felt lonely and socially isolated. She apparently had difficulty adjusting to her new surroundings and spoke only German. Andreas and Sophie eventually moved to Yorktown, where they were buried in a Lutheran cemetery.
As a boy, Fred took up ranching, and then ran cattle along the Old Chisholm Trail for three years. He worked in Wichita, Kan. for two years to avoid getting embroiled in a bloody post-Civil War feud brewing around Karnes Co. between the Sutton and Taylor clans.
Eventually, he ran a spread called the "Weaning Ranch" in Karnes County, where his son, Thomas, grew up.
They hosted many friends and visitors there, including John Wesley Hardin and his cousins, the Clements brothers. It was during one of Fred's dealings with them, herding cattle, that Hardin and the Clements ran into gunplay in which several Mexicans were killed, and for which Hardin was sent to the penitentiary.
Hardin's wife Jane and three children stayed nearby and she worked for the Duderstadts.
Ruth Duderstadt Love wrote about Fred's life in the 1986 Kerr County Album. She told a story about a time when Fred was guarding a chuckwagon after sending his cowboys out, and some hungry Indians arrived.
"Fred gave (their chief) a quarter of beef from his chuck wagon, and ... they immediately began eating it raw. By the time Fred was ready to move out, the Indians had finished eating the entire quarter of beef. Several months later in Wichita, an Indian stopped Fred on the street and handed him a cigar. When Fred asked the reason for the cigar, the Indian replied, ‘My men hungry. You give 'em meat, I give you cigar.'"
After returning to Texas from Wichita, Fred married Henrietta Tennille, the daughter of the man from whom his father had bought land. They had six children including Nancy, George, Frederick Eugene and Thomas "Tom" Andrew (born in 1885). Two others, Sally and John, died as youngsters.
Tom married Elizabeth Spellmann, whose pioneer family had immigrated from Westphalia, Germany. Their arrival in Kerr County came soon after that of his father, and of his brother, George, who came with his wife, Stella Elkins, and their children (Leona, Elna, Lois and James), settling at the Reservation Community in 1905.
Tom's son, Ernest, attended Sunset School in Mountain Home, and then graduated from Tivy High School in 1927. He went to Texas A&M briefly, but because of a football injury, left to work livestock in Yancy, where he leased a place near his parents.
He married Elsie Buss in 1931, after meeting her on her rural mail route, and they had four sons and a daughter: Tommie Rae, Ernest Keith, Fred Jerome, Kenneth Paul and Culver Lynn. Later, they also helped raise a cousin, Betty Jo Buss, as well as James A. Black, an orphan from Kentucky. James had been a Boy Scout at Indian Creek, and when his adoptive parents were unwilling to raise him, he requested to live with "Uncle Duder." He is now a successful accountant living in Houston.
In 1934, a flood wiped out Ernest and Elsie. Culver said they barely escaped with their lives in the middle of the night.
"They set out with the babies and headed eight miles to his parents' place," he said. "They walked, swam and tried to keep from drowning in the high water. Later, when they went back to look, the house was gone."
Looking for ways to support his family, Ernest drove a gas truck when they lived in Hondo, owned a blacksmith shop in Utopia, and even ran a hatchery. By 1949, after moving to Cherry Valley, he was a ranch foreman for a Houston man. In 1952, they moved to Leakey, and ran "Duder's Cafe," until 1956.
Ernest, meanwhile, became interested in scouting, and on Dec. 29, 1953, the family made history.
"Dad and the four of us boys all got our Eagle Scout awards on the same day," Culver said. "That's the first, and I believe, the only time in Boy Scout history that a father and four sons all became Eagle Scouts at the same time. It was in all the papers, and even Texas Governor Allan Shivers called up to congratulate us."
The ceremony took place at the Uvalde High School auditorium with Shivers, and a future Texas governor, Dolph Briscoe, in attendance.
By 1956, Ernest found work with the BSA as director at Camp Fawcett in Barksdale, while helping to prepare Indian Creek Scout Camp. He also served at Camp McGimsey in San Antonio, and then Indian Creek.
Indian Creek Scout Camp in Ingram preceded Bear Creek Scout Reservation, and its patches dated 1938-1974 are in a case at Bear Creek's camp headquarters. Indian Creek Camp was located directly across the Guadalupe River looking south from the Point Theater, but it is now in private hands.
Culver recalled ceremonies for induction into the Order of the Arrow on Friday nights between the camp and the old crossing at Johnson Creek.
"There would be canoes with scouts holding torches coming up the river, and people would line up all along the banks to watch. You couldn't find a parking space, so many used to come."
BCSR's early days is rooted with some famous names. In the 1940s, the land was owned by Eddie Rickenbacker (1890-1973), who became world-famous as America's top flying ace (22 kills) in World War I. He also owned Indianapolis Speedway (1927-45) and ran Eastern Air Lines (1938-59).
Several miles past Hunt, Rickenbacker owned a big piece of land (600-700 acres) along with a large home where he entertained many famous people like Arthur Godfrey, Culver said. The house, as far as he knew, is still standing. Rickenbacker put up a big fence and then imported game for hunting. He donated nearly 1,100 acres where the game park existed and the land behind it to the scouts.
The people who worked at Indian Creek camp called it "Slickwire," Curtis said. Eventually, Rickenbacker had decided that imported game hunting and scouts didn't mesh. The scouts sold Indian Creek camp, and separately sold Slickwire to the Friedrich family (who owned the air conditioning company in San Antonio) for enough to pay for the front part of the Hunt property. They developed two camps — Camp Friedrich and Rickenbacker Camp.
There had been an experiment at the property in West Kerr County, Culver said, to cool the waters of Bear Creek by installing refrigeration devices there, in hopes of propagating trout for fishing. The idea went "downriver" along with the trout, and remnants of the project have since disappeared.
BCSR operates about 1,000 acres, filled with camp sites, along with several residences, and plenty of high and low places where the creek winds its way eventually into the Guadalupe River. The paved roads include Mess Hall Road, and in the farther reaches, there is Duderstadt Byway Road. When BCSR opened in 1964, its patches read Rickenbacker Scout Camp; in 1965, it was changed to Bear Creek/Rickenbacker Ranch, and in 1966, it was under the umbrella of the Alamo Area Council.
"In the old days," Culver said, "you'd be roughing it. There were no facilities, just an outhouse, and a place to clean up with cold running water."
The other side of the valley was where the programs took place, and camping took place in the hills on either side, and both ends had dining halls. Now the scouts use the front side for their camping, and the back end is used for training.
After Ernest retired in 1983 and moved to Seguin, he'd still come up and visit and sit by the campfires, Culver said.
Culver is married to Elaine Nichols, who was a childhood classmate, and they live in Austin. Elaine's parents were Leroy and Susie Davis Nichols, and her maternal grandparents were Bob Davis (a judge in Uvalde Co.) and Anne Lee Auld, whose family ranched out near the Divide. They have five children between them from previous marriages.
Since January, 2006, Curtis Grimm has been the ranger at BCSR, where he lives year-round with his son Connor, 11, a Hunt School student. Grimm said he drove trucks for 13 years, got overweight and suffered from high blood pressure. Since taking the ranger job, he said he's lost 50 pounds, and his blood pressure is healthy.
"I wish I'd started here long ago," he quipped. "Out here, I am so happy — I've got everything I need."
He said he was honored to step into the place that ‘Uncle Duder' built.
There is a Spellmann family cemetery at Nopal where the Duderstadt descendants took Ernest's and Elsie's ashes to scatter last weekend. Fittingly, their next stop was on a high cliff at BCSR, overlooking the place Ernest had loved so much.
Ernest's ashes were scattered at the Spellmann Cemetery along with his wife, Elsie.
EDITOR'S NOTE — This is the 82nd of a series of articles marking Kerr County's sesquicentennial.
By Irene Van Winkle
West Kerr Current
Ernest Frederick "Uncle Duder" Duderstadt (1908-1993) was an infant when his parents Tom and "Lizzie" moved to Mountain Home in 1908. They arrived at the 3,000-acre ranch, traveling in a two-horse buggy from Karnes County in the heat of August, with a colt named Spike following behind.
Ernest grew up at that ranch, and later in life he contributed more than 50 years to the world of Boy Scouts in West Kerr County and elsewhere.
The Duderstadt clan recently paid tribute to Ernest, and his wife, Elsie Buss (who passed away last month), gathering in two locations of personal importance to the family.
Their son, Culver, said that Ernest practically built Bear Creek Scout Reservation in its early days, laying rock for the original dining halls and erecting the faux- "village" near the entrance.
Building was in Ernest's blood, a trade going back to his great-grandfather who first stepped onto Texas soil. Culver said there is a city in former West Germany named Duderstadt, where part of the Berlin Wall ran through, and where many people escaped from East Germany.
In a recent book compiled by relatives, the first historical mention of the town was in the year 929 A. D. "However, historians say, according to finding of recent excavations, that this area was inhabited as early as the Last Ice Age."
During the rule of Henry I, Duke of Saxony, in the early 10th century, the town became a walled military installation, complete with a castle, towers, rock gates and surrounded by a moat. Another town mentioned in the book that became similarly fortified was called "Grona," another well-known name in the Hill Country.
By 1521, under the possession of the Archibishop of Mains, the city had grown and become a thriving trade center. The 30 Years' War, however, reduced it to a small agricultural town. Famines, fires and disease also wracked the city through the centuries, but many examples of Roman, Gothic and Renaissance construction still remain. In 1802, Duderstadt became part of Prussia, and in 1816, it was attached to the Province of Hanover, of which it is now the chief city.
There are several theories about why the Duderstadts came to America. One was because they did not want their sons to serve in the army under a new regime, and another was because the government had confiscated much of their property.
Ernest's great-grandfather, Baron Von (John) Andreas Duderstadt (1815-1901), married Sophie Dickehut (1818-1900) and their third child, born in Andreas's home town of Luettgenrode, was Friedrich "Fred" Christoph Heinrich (1851-1938.)
According to the family history, Andreas first came to America in 1854. Landing at Indianola, he went to Gonzalez County near the future site of Nopal (a town that no longer exists). He sent word to his younger brother, Frederick, who arrived later that year and settled his family in De Witt County.
Andreas's family did not arrive until either late in 1857 (the year Andreas applied for American citizenship) or early 1858, after he had built a proper stone house, and Sophie's mother had died. Andreas had bought land from George Culver Tennille, and then returned to Prussia to prepare for the move.
His family, which included Fred and his two siblings — Johanna, 12, and John, 9 — came by ship, stopping along the way in Florida, where, Fred later recalled, they got a taste of the oranges that were brought aboard.
Disembarking in Indianola, the family traveled 100 miles inland by oxcart and wagon, so laden with goods that Andreas and John had to walk.
In 1859, another son, Henry, was born. By 1861, records show Andreas owned more than 300 acres in Gonzalez County. Besides ranching and farming, Andreas worked mainly as a stone mason. Often acquiring materials from Mexico, he built many old structures, including the county's first courthouse, as well as a courthouse in New Braunfels.
The family book gave an account by Mrs. J.B. Sorenson of Taylor, Texas, who knew the couple.
"Mr. Duderstadt was low and heavy set, but not fat," she said. "He often had asthma real bad ... He would charge two cows and two calves for building a chimney. ... He recalled how once, when he and other freighters, returning from San Antonio, were camping overnight in the brush, they were aroused by sounds of robbers or Indians approaching. Mr. Duderstadt quickly grabbed his bag of money and flung it into the cold ashes of the campfire. His presence of mind saved the money and kept the men from harm."
Mrs. Anderson mentioned that Sophie often felt lonely and socially isolated. She apparently had difficulty adjusting to her new surroundings and spoke only German. Andreas and Sophie eventually moved to Yorktown, where they were buried in a Lutheran cemetery.
As a boy, Fred took up ranching, and then ran cattle along the Old Chisholm Trail for three years. He worked in Wichita, Kan. for two years to avoid getting embroiled in a bloody post-Civil War feud brewing around Karnes Co. between the Sutton and Taylor clans.
Eventually, he ran a spread called the "Weaning Ranch" in Karnes County, where his son, Thomas, grew up.
They hosted many friends and visitors there, including John Wesley Hardin and his cousins, the Clements brothers. It was during one of Fred's dealings with them, herding cattle, that Hardin and the Clements ran into gunplay in which several Mexicans were killed, and for which Hardin was sent to the penitentiary.
Hardin's wife Jane and three children stayed nearby and she worked for the Duderstadts.
Ruth Duderstadt Love wrote about Fred's life in the 1986 Kerr County Album. She told a story about a time when Fred was guarding a chuckwagon after sending his cowboys out, and some hungry Indians arrived.
"Fred gave (their chief) a quarter of beef from his chuck wagon, and ... they immediately began eating it raw. By the time Fred was ready to move out, the Indians had finished eating the entire quarter of beef. Several months later in Wichita, an Indian stopped Fred on the street and handed him a cigar. When Fred asked the reason for the cigar, the Indian replied, ‘My men hungry. You give 'em meat, I give you cigar.'"
After returning to Texas from Wichita, Fred married Henrietta Tennille, the daughter of the man from whom his father had bought land. They had six children including Nancy, George, Frederick Eugene and Thomas "Tom" Andrew (born in 1885). Two others, Sally and John, died as youngsters.
Tom married Elizabeth Spellmann, whose pioneer family had immigrated from Westphalia, Germany. Their arrival in Kerr County came soon after that of his father, and of his brother, George, who came with his wife, Stella Elkins, and their children (Leona, Elna, Lois and James), settling at the Reservation Community in 1905.
Tom's son, Ernest, attended Sunset School in Mountain Home, and then graduated from Tivy High School in 1927. He went to Texas A&M briefly, but because of a football injury, left to work livestock in Yancy, where he leased a place near his parents.
He married Elsie Buss in 1931, after meeting her on her rural mail route, and they had four sons and a daughter: Tommie Rae, Ernest Keith, Fred Jerome, Kenneth Paul and Culver Lynn. Later, they also helped raise a cousin, Betty Jo Buss, as well as James A. Black, an orphan from Kentucky. James had been a Boy Scout at Indian Creek, and when his adoptive parents were unwilling to raise him, he requested to live with "Uncle Duder." He is now a successful accountant living in Houston.
In 1934, a flood wiped out Ernest and Elsie. Culver said they barely escaped with their lives in the middle of the night.
"They set out with the babies and headed eight miles to his parents' place," he said. "They walked, swam and tried to keep from drowning in the high water. Later, when they went back to look, the house was gone."
Looking for ways to support his family, Ernest drove a gas truck when they lived in Hondo, owned a blacksmith shop in Utopia, and even ran a hatchery. By 1949, after moving to Cherry Valley, he was a ranch foreman for a Houston man. In 1952, they moved to Leakey, and ran "Duder's Cafe," until 1956.
Ernest, meanwhile, became interested in scouting, and on Dec. 29, 1953, the family made history.
"Dad and the four of us boys all got our Eagle Scout awards on the same day," Culver said. "That's the first, and I believe, the only time in Boy Scout history that a father and four sons all became Eagle Scouts at the same time. It was in all the papers, and even Texas Governor Allan Shivers called up to congratulate us."
The ceremony took place at the Uvalde High School auditorium with Shivers, and a future Texas governor, Dolph Briscoe, in attendance.
By 1956, Ernest found work with the BSA as director at Camp Fawcett in Barksdale, while helping to prepare Indian Creek Scout Camp. He also served at Camp McGimsey in San Antonio, and then Indian Creek.
Indian Creek Scout Camp in Ingram preceded Bear Creek Scout Reservation, and its patches dated 1938-1974 are in a case at Bear Creek's camp headquarters. Indian Creek Camp was located directly across the Guadalupe River looking south from the Point Theater, but it is now in private hands.
Culver recalled ceremonies for induction into the Order of the Arrow on Friday nights between the camp and the old crossing at Johnson Creek.
"There would be canoes with scouts holding torches coming up the river, and people would line up all along the banks to watch. You couldn't find a parking space, so many used to come."
BCSR's early days is rooted with some famous names. In the 1940s, the land was owned by Eddie Rickenbacker (1890-1973), who became world-famous as America's top flying ace (22 kills) in World War I. He also owned Indianapolis Speedway (1927-45) and ran Eastern Air Lines (1938-59).
Several miles past Hunt, Rickenbacker owned a big piece of land (600-700 acres) along with a large home where he entertained many famous people like Arthur Godfrey, Culver said. The house, as far as he knew, is still standing. Rickenbacker put up a big fence and then imported game for hunting. He donated nearly 1,100 acres where the game park existed and the land behind it to the scouts.
The people who worked at Indian Creek camp called it "Slickwire," Curtis said. Eventually, Rickenbacker had decided that imported game hunting and scouts didn't mesh. The scouts sold Indian Creek camp, and separately sold Slickwire to the Friedrich family (who owned the air conditioning company in San Antonio) for enough to pay for the front part of the Hunt property. They developed two camps — Camp Friedrich and Rickenbacker Camp.
There had been an experiment at the property in West Kerr County, Culver said, to cool the waters of Bear Creek by installing refrigeration devices there, in hopes of propagating trout for fishing. The idea went "downriver" along with the trout, and remnants of the project have since disappeared.
BCSR operates about 1,000 acres, filled with camp sites, along with several residences, and plenty of high and low places where the creek winds its way eventually into the Guadalupe River. The paved roads include Mess Hall Road, and in the farther reaches, there is Duderstadt Byway Road. When BCSR opened in 1964, its patches read Rickenbacker Scout Camp; in 1965, it was changed to Bear Creek/Rickenbacker Ranch, and in 1966, it was under the umbrella of the Alamo Area Council.
"In the old days," Culver said, "you'd be roughing it. There were no facilities, just an outhouse, and a place to clean up with cold running water."
The other side of the valley was where the programs took place, and camping took place in the hills on either side, and both ends had dining halls. Now the scouts use the front side for their camping, and the back end is used for training.
After Ernest retired in 1983 and moved to Seguin, he'd still come up and visit and sit by the campfires, Culver said.
Culver is married to Elaine Nichols, who was a childhood classmate, and they live in Austin. Elaine's parents were Leroy and Susie Davis Nichols, and her maternal grandparents were Bob Davis (a judge in Uvalde Co.) and Anne Lee Auld, whose family ranched out near the Divide. They have five children between them from previous marriages.
Since January, 2006, Curtis Grimm has been the ranger at BCSR, where he lives year-round with his son Connor, 11, a Hunt School student. Grimm said he drove trucks for 13 years, got overweight and suffered from high blood pressure. Since taking the ranger job, he said he's lost 50 pounds, and his blood pressure is healthy.
"I wish I'd started here long ago," he quipped. "Out here, I am so happy — I've got everything I need."
He said he was honored to step into the place that ‘Uncle Duder' built.
There is a Spellmann family cemetery at Nopal where the Duderstadt descendants took Ernest's and Elsie's ashes to scatter last weekend. Fittingly, their next stop was on a high cliff at BCSR, overlooking the place Ernest had loved so much.
EDITOR'S NOTE — This is the 82nd of a series of articles marking Kerr County's sesquicentennial.
By Irene Van Winkle
West Kerr Current
Ernest Frederick "Uncle Duder" Duderstadt (1908-1993) was an infant when his parents Tom and "Lizzie" moved to Mountain Home in 1908. They arrived at the 3,000-acre ranch, traveling in a two-horse buggy from Karnes County in the heat of August, with a colt named Spike following behind.
Ernest grew up at that ranch, and later in life he contributed more than 50 years to the world of Boy Scouts in West Kerr County and elsewhere.
The Duderstadt clan recently paid tribute to Ernest, and his wife, Elsie Buss (who passed away last month), gathering in two locations of personal importance to the family.
Their son, Culver, said that Ernest practically built Bear Creek Scout Reservation in its early days, laying rock for the original dining halls and erecting the faux- "village" near the entrance.
Building was in Ernest's blood, a trade going back to his great-grandfather who first stepped onto Texas soil. Culver said there is a city in former West Germany named Duderstadt, where part of the Berlin Wall ran through, and where many people escaped from East Germany.
In a recent book compiled by relatives, the first historical mention of the town was in the year 929 A. D. "However, historians say, according to finding of recent excavations, that this area was inhabited as early as the Last Ice Age."
During the rule of Henry I, Duke of Saxony, in the early 10th century, the town became a walled military installation, complete with a castle, towers, rock gates and surrounded by a moat. Another town mentioned in the book that became similarly fortified was called "Grona," another well-known name in the Hill Country.
By 1521, under the possession of the Archibishop of Mains, the city had grown and become a thriving trade center. The 30 Years' War, however, reduced it to a small agricultural town. Famines, fires and disease also wracked the city through the centuries, but many examples of Roman, Gothic and Renaissance construction still remain. In 1802, Duderstadt became part of Prussia, and in 1816, it was attached to the Province of Hanover, of which it is now the chief city.
There are several theories about why the Duderstadts came to America. One was because they did not want their sons to serve in the army under a new regime, and another was because the government had confiscated much of their property.
Ernest's great-grandfather, Baron Von (John) Andreas Duderstadt (1815-1901), married Sophie Dickehut (1818-1900) and their third child, born in Andreas's home town of Luettgenrode, was Friedrich "Fred" Christoph Heinrich (1851-1938.)
According to the family history, Andreas first came to America in 1854. Landing at Indianola, he went to Gonzalez County near the future site of Nopal (a town that no longer exists). He sent word to his younger brother, Frederick, who arrived later that year and settled his family in De Witt County.
Andreas's family did not arrive until either late in 1857 (the year Andreas applied for American citizenship) or early 1858, after he had built a proper stone house, and Sophie's mother had died. Andreas had bought land from George Culver Tennille, and then returned to Prussia to prepare for the move.
His family, which included Fred and his two siblings — Johanna, 12, and John, 9 — came by ship, stopping along the way in Florida, where, Fred later recalled, they got a taste of the oranges that were brought aboard.
Disembarking in Indianola, the family traveled 100 miles inland by oxcart and wagon, so laden with goods that Andreas and John had to walk.
In 1859, another son, Henry, was born. By 1861, records show Andreas owned more than 300 acres in Gonzalez County. Besides ranching and farming, Andreas worked mainly as a stone mason. Often acquiring materials from Mexico, he built many old structures, including the county's first courthouse, as well as a courthouse in New Braunfels.
The family book gave an account by Mrs. J.B. Sorenson of Taylor, Texas, who knew the couple.
"Mr. Duderstadt was low and heavy set, but not fat," she said. "He often had asthma real bad ... He would charge two cows and two calves for building a chimney. ... He recalled how once, when he and other freighters, returning from San Antonio, were camping overnight in the brush, they were aroused by sounds of robbers or Indians approaching. Mr. Duderstadt quickly grabbed his bag of money and flung it into the cold ashes of the campfire. His presence of mind saved the money and kept the men from harm."
Mrs. Anderson mentioned that Sophie often felt lonely and socially isolated. She apparently had difficulty adjusting to her new surroundings and spoke only German. Andreas and Sophie eventually moved to Yorktown, where they were buried in a Lutheran cemetery.
As a boy, Fred took up ranching, and then ran cattle along the Old Chisholm Trail for three years. He worked in Wichita, Kan. for two years to avoid getting embroiled in a bloody post-Civil War feud brewing around Karnes Co. between the Sutton and Taylor clans.
Eventually, he ran a spread called the "Weaning Ranch" in Karnes County, where his son, Thomas, grew up.
They hosted many friends and visitors there, including John Wesley Hardin and his cousins, the Clements brothers. It was during one of Fred's dealings with them, herding cattle, that Hardin and the Clements ran into gunplay in which several Mexicans were killed, and for which Hardin was sent to the penitentiary.
Hardin's wife Jane and three children stayed nearby and she worked for the Duderstadts.
Ruth Duderstadt Love wrote about Fred's life in the 1986 Kerr County Album. She told a story about a time when Fred was guarding a chuckwagon after sending his cowboys out, and some hungry Indians arrived.
"Fred gave (their chief) a quarter of beef from his chuck wagon, and ... they immediately began eating it raw. By the time Fred was ready to move out, the Indians had finished eating the entire quarter of beef. Several months later in Wichita, an Indian stopped Fred on the street and handed him a cigar. When Fred asked the reason for the cigar, the Indian replied, ‘My men hungry. You give 'em meat, I give you cigar.'"
After returning to Texas from Wichita, Fred married Henrietta Tennille, the daughter of the man from whom his father had bought land. They had six children including Nancy, George, Frederick Eugene and Thomas "Tom" Andrew (born in 1885). Two others, Sally and John, died as youngsters.
Tom married Elizabeth Spellmann, whose pioneer family had immigrated from Westphalia, Germany. Their arrival in Kerr County came soon after that of his father, and of his brother, George, who came with his wife, Stella Elkins, and their children (Leona, Elna, Lois and James), settling at the Reservation Community in 1905.
Tom's son, Ernest, attended Sunset School in Mountain Home, and then graduated from Tivy High School in 1927. He went to Texas A&M briefly, but because of a football injury, left to work livestock in Yancy, where he leased a place near his parents.
He married Elsie Buss in 1931, after meeting her on her rural mail route, and they had four sons and a daughter: Tommie Rae, Ernest Keith, Fred Jerome, Kenneth Paul and Culver Lynn. Later, they also helped raise a cousin, Betty Jo Buss, as well as James A. Black, an orphan from Kentucky. James had been a Boy Scout at Indian Creek, and when his adoptive parents were unwilling to raise him, he requested to live with "Uncle Duder." He is now a successful accountant living in Houston.
In 1934, a flood wiped out Ernest and Elsie. Culver said they barely escaped with their lives in the middle of the night.
"They set out with the babies and headed eight miles to his parents' place," he said. "They walked, swam and tried to keep from drowning in the high water. Later, when they went back to look, the house was gone."
Looking for ways to support his family, Ernest drove a gas truck when they lived in Hondo, owned a blacksmith shop in Utopia, and even ran a hatchery. By 1949, after moving to Cherry Valley, he was a ranch foreman for a Houston man. In 1952, they moved to Leakey, and ran "Duder's Cafe," until 1956.
Ernest, meanwhile, became interested in scouting, and on Dec. 29, 1953, the family made history.
"Dad and the four of us boys all got our Eagle Scout awards on the same day," Culver said. "That's the first, and I believe, the only time in Boy Scout history that a father and four sons all became Eagle Scouts at the same time. It was in all the papers, and even Texas Governor Allan Shivers called up to congratulate us."
The ceremony took place at the Uvalde High School auditorium with Shivers, and a future Texas governor, Dolph Briscoe, in attendance.
By 1956, Ernest found work with the BSA as director at Camp Fawcett in Barksdale, while helping to prepare Indian Creek Scout Camp. He also served at Camp McGimsey in San Antonio, and then Indian Creek.
Indian Creek Scout Camp in Ingram preceded Bear Creek Scout Reservation, and its patches dated 1938-1974 are in a case at Bear Creek's camp headquarters. Indian Creek Camp was located directly across the Guadalupe River looking south from the Point Theater, but it is now in private hands.
Culver recalled ceremonies for induction into the Order of the Arrow on Friday nights between the camp and the old crossing at Johnson Creek.
"There would be canoes with scouts holding torches coming up the river, and people would line up all along the banks to watch. You couldn't find a parking space, so many used to come."
BCSR's early days is rooted with some famous names. In the 1940s, the land was owned by Eddie Rickenbacker (1890-1973), who became world-famous as America's top flying ace (22 kills) in World War I. He also owned Indianapolis Speedway (1927-45) and ran Eastern Air Lines (1938-59).
Several miles past Hunt, Rickenbacker owned a big piece of land (600-700 acres) along with a large home where he entertained many famous people like Arthur Godfrey, Culver said. The house, as far as he knew, is still standing. Rickenbacker put up a big fence and then imported game for hunting. He donated nearly 1,100 acres where the game park existed and the land behind it to the scouts.
The people who worked at Indian Creek camp called it "Slickwire," Curtis said. Eventually, Rickenbacker had decided that imported game hunting and scouts didn't mesh. The scouts sold Indian Creek camp, and separately sold Slickwire to the Friedrich family (who owned the air conditioning company in San Antonio) for enough to pay for the front part of the Hunt property. They developed two camps — Camp Friedrich and Rickenbacker Camp.
There had been an experiment at the property in West Kerr County, Culver said, to cool the waters of Bear Creek by installing refrigeration devices there, in hopes of propagating trout for fishing. The idea went "downriver" along with the trout, and remnants of the project have since disappeared.
BCSR operates about 1,000 acres, filled with camp sites, along with several residences, and plenty of high and low places where the creek winds its way eventually into the Guadalupe River. The paved roads include Mess Hall Road, and in the farther reaches, there is Duderstadt Byway Road. When BCSR opened in 1964, its patches read Rickenbacker Scout Camp; in 1965, it was changed to Bear Creek/Rickenbacker Ranch, and in 1966, it was under the umbrella of the Alamo Area Council.
"In the old days," Culver said, "you'd be roughing it. There were no facilities, just an outhouse, and a place to clean up with cold running water."
The other side of the valley was where the programs took place, and camping took place in the hills on either side, and both ends had dining halls. Now the scouts use the front side for their camping, and the back end is used for training.
After Ernest retired in 1983 and moved to Seguin, he'd still come up and visit and sit by the campfires, Culver said.
Culver is married to Elaine Nichols, who was a childhood classmate, and they live in Austin. Elaine's parents were Leroy and Susie Davis Nichols, and her maternal grandparents were Bob Davis (a judge in Uvalde Co.) and Anne Lee Auld, whose family ranched out near the Divide. They have five children between them from previous marriages.
Since January, 2006, Curtis Grimm has been the ranger at BCSR, where he lives year-round with his son Connor, 11, a Hunt School student. Grimm said he drove trucks for 13 years, got overweight and suffered from high blood pressure. Since taking the ranger job, he said he's lost 50 pounds, and his blood pressure is healthy.
"I wish I'd started here long ago," he quipped. "Out here, I am so happy — I've got everything I need."
He said he was honored to step into the place that ‘Uncle Duder' built.
There is a Spellmann family cemetery at Nopal where the Duderstadt descendants took Ernest's and Elsie's ashes to scatter last weekend. Fittingly, their next stop was on a high cliff at BCSR, overlooking the place Ernest had loved so much.
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