So, How Do You Pronounce...

Budde Cemetery

Last week I featured a tombstone that was for a beloved family pet named Kitty Budde, which can be found in Budde Cemetery in Spring, Texas.  I'm not related to Kitty nor the Budde family, but I do have a small connection to them...

So, How Do You Pronounce...

When we moved back to Houston, Texas and the surrounding area [which is what we, around here, simply call Houston], we lived in an apartment for a while.  We found this really nice apartment complex located on Budde Rd.  I asked my husband how to pronounce it.  I mean, was it "Budde" as in "buddy", "Budde" as in "booty"?  I was thinking at the time that I'd hate to get that one wrong.  We soon found out from the apartment complex that it was pronounced "Budde" as in "booty." [Sigh.]  Oh, well.  How many times was I really going to have repeat it, and if I was talking to a local, it shouldn't be a big deal.  Right?

Pause, Snort, and Sigh

Wrong.  When I called to set-up the utilties, the response was always the same.  I'd say we need to setup service on Budde Rd., and the customer service representative would pause, snort [yes, actually snort], and reply, "Budde Rd.?"  After I would confirm it, they'd pull it up on their computer and ask, "Are you sure that it's not pronounced "buddy"?  I would reply [with great dignity, of course], "No,  it's Budde." Even the bank's customer service representative was stunned.  Everyone gave the exact same response.  Then when we finally moved, I got the same response when I was transferring the service.  [Sigh.]

 An Old "Friend" Revisited

Several months back, when researching Old Town Spring, Texas and the Wunsche family.  My old friend, Budde, popped up again.  Online I stumbled across and  found 4 self-driving tours of Spring, Texas and the surrounding areas that included all the old German settlements in the area.  When I say "stumbled upon it," I really do mean stumble because it was written by the Klein Historical Society, but it is accessible only through Klein Independent School District's website under their "History of the Klein Area."  [You really have to be looking for it.]  There are 4 tours that include historical homes, cemeteries [including family cemeteries], and property once owned by prominent [mostly] German settlers.  There is no date of when they were written, but it seems they were written about 20 years ago.  Tour Four is entitled, "Wandering in Spring" and it includes Budde Cemetery.  I really wanted to find this cemetery because I wanted to meet the family that had caused so much grief with my address.

 How Hard Could It Be?

Of course, this adventure was "tacked on" to the end of another cemetery visit, and I hadn't mapped it yet, but I figured, "How hard could it be?"  [famous last words]  I thought it would be really easy to find it because Budde Rd. is not a long road and has definite "ends."  What I mean is that it doesn't end, then pick up somewhere else.  It just ends.  I had lived on it, and had driven from end to end. So, easy, right? [The map below is of Budde Rd., Spring, Texas]

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Why I Need/Want an iPhone, or, at the very least, GPS

Wrong.  I combed Budde Rd.  over and over and over again.  I could not find Budde Cemetery on Budde Rd.   I decided then to take a look at the driving tour directions, which I had been using earlier that day to try to find another cemetery.  This other cemetery adventure was unsuccessful, but I was not going home empty-handed.  I didn't consult this at first because the Budde Cemetery was in the middle, and I didn't feel I needed to read the directions stop-by-stop to find it.  [I mean, I had lived on the street.]  After consulting the driving tour directions numerous times, I find out that there is a Budde Cemetery Road [but it's only called Budde Rd. in the tour guide].  So if you're only looking for Budde Rd, you won't find the cemetery.  Budde Cemetery Rd. does pick up where Budde Rd would be if it continued south along Interstate-45.  The street sign is not easily seen from the cross street, Louetta Rd.  Louetta Rd. is a very busy road used by commuters to get to Interstate 45 on their way to the city for work, and Budde Cemetery Rd is very close to Interstate 45. Therefore, it is easily missed.   [But, hey, I was on a mission.]  When I turned down Budde Cemetery Rd., I felt like I was no where near a major freeway.  There were tons and tons of pine and oak trees that silence the "busy-ness" of the world outside.  There were small homes that looked to be a hundred years old or more, and then there were new homes that were huge.  I did recognize some of the surnames on the mailboxes as being the same as some of the ones from the driving tours.  [The first map shows Budde Cemetery ("B" on the map) in relationship to the actual Budde Rd. ("A" on the map).  The second map is a close-up of Budde Cemetery.]

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View Larger Map

Spring's Settlers

Budde Cemetery is located at the very end of Budde Cemetery Rd., and what a very lovely "end" it is.  It's definitely quiet.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that it is so well taken care of, and walking through it [even in 100 degree Texas heat] was even more pleasant.  In fact, it was calming for though I was truly alone, I was amongst those who had first settled the Spring area.  Not only is the Budde family buried there [and Kitty], but many of the first [mostly] German settlers are buried there as well.  I felt like I already knew them, and not just because a lot of  major streets in Spring are named after them, but because I had read quite a bit of the Spring area's history while studying the Wunsche family.

Wanting To Keep It "Mine"

Now, locating the Budde family was not easy.  In fact, I found Kitty Budde before I found any others.  Then, finally I found a Gottlibe (Gottlieb) Budde.  Her full name was Gottliebe Christiana (Wunsche) Budde and she was the wife of Herman Heinrich Budde, the man with the name that has given me so much grief.  One whose name gets repeated often because, as mentioned before. Budde Rd. is located off a busy cross street and runs parallel to Interstate 45, which is just a block away.]  As  I photographed his wife's tombstone, I wondered if Herman ever thought in a million years that his name would be so well-known in the year 2009 in the area that he helped to settle.  Probably not.  As I got back into my car and turned on the air conditioning, I had this feeling of not wanting to share this cemetery.  It's so well-hidden, and it seems to be a private retreat from all the "busy-ness" of modern life, but here it is.  If you are ever in the neighborhood, I definitely recommend stopping by and visiting the settlers of Spring, Texas.

Finding "Budde's Way"

As a side note, I did look up the origin of the name Budde.  I usually use "Behind the Name" [both for given names and surnames], but it didn't have Budde.  So, I googled the name and only the "Coat of Arms" site seemed to have an explanation of the name:

Biedenweg , an unusual German place name, means "by the way" as a location of where someone lived -- 'way' meaning course or path. An Old Middle German given name was Budde , which evolved into several surnames. Budde's Way, or the path to Budde's settlement or enclosure, might have been taken as a surname for someone who lived along that trail -- as Buddeweg or Budweg .

Makes perfect sense, doesn't it?  They just forgot to mention that "Budde's way" was hard to find [not to mention "fun" to pronounce].

Morton Cemetery: Jane Long

Jane Long, "The Mother of Texas", Morton Cemetery, Richmond, Texas

For information on Jane Long, visit my companion blog Texas Family Stories.

Tombstone Tuesday: Kitty Budde

Tombstone Tuesday: Hanging Out

Hanging Out

While I mulled over my genealogy "to-do" list in my head as the kids and I drove to Galveston Island, Texas last Friday, I had to mentally "stop" and be realistic about what we'd actually get accomplished.  After all, we were going to be on a beach for goodness sakes.  Also, the best way that I've found to get my kids to behave is to promise to do something "fun", but hold-off on the "fun" until I'm done with everything else.  Apparently, hanging out in a cemetery does not compare to frolicking in the surf.  [Duh.]  As soon as we drove up to Lakeview Cemetery, my kids were already asking, "So, when are we going to the beach?"  Although, who could blame them?  The beach is about a block from the cemetery, and you can hear the waves breaking from there.  I knew I wasn't going to get much done.

The first time that we ever went to Lakeview Cemetery was March 2008, about 6 months before hurricane Ike hit Galveston Island.  I was extremely confident that day about finding my Marschall family's tombstones.  After all, I had the section and lot numbers, and Lakeview Cemetery is not that big of a cemetery.  However, my hopes were soon dashed when I realized how much Lakeview was neglected.  Additionally, the older tombstones [like the ones I was looking for], were either broken, unreadable, and/or just plain missing.  To add to my difficulties, some well-meaning person(s) had planted groundcover, I guess, to help beautify the cemetery.  Unfortunately, I suspected that possibly underneath the now dense groundcover were probably my [and other's] family members' tombstones.  I went away that day more than a little disappointed.

Due to all the flooding that occured from Hurricane Ike, most, if not all, cemeteries are in horrid condition.  Just after the storm, there were many coffins that had been unearthed.  The photos here [click link and scroll down to photo #23 and photo #24] depict the conditions at the time.  After seeing the photos, I thought what a shame, and what a big and tedious chore it was going to be to fix all the cemeteries.  While that's true, I also thought that possibly in the long run, this might help some of the cemeteries, which there are so many of in Galveston.  Galveston Island is known as the "cemetery with a beach" because there are so many of them.  Unfortunately, though, the older ones are extremely neglected.  My thought was that possibly the flooding would have unearthed and/or loosened the groundcover, revealing old tombstones.  [Hey, a girl can dream...]

The one aspect of the landscape on Galveston Island that I was not expecting was the effects of all the salt water on the grass and trees.  The prolonged exposure to the salt water flooding killed most of the live oak trees on Galveston Island, leaving mostly just the palm trees.  This, too, affected the look of Lakeview Cemetery as well as all the cemeteries leaving them all to look completely barren [if not ugly].  However, the clearing of the trees and bushes in Lakeview Cemetery did reveal some old tombstones.  In looking at the back of the cemetery in the section that my family should be in and where most of the older tombstones are, I did find more tombstones located there, that I don't remember seeing before.  Also, along the back wall [that is about 1 foot high]  are older tombstones [some of which are broken] leaning up against the wall that were not there before.  Likewise, the groundcover is loosened, if not gone, in some places.  A cursory look in the section did not reveal where my grandparents, John and Emma (Schleicher) Marschall, their toddler son Robert, their son Rolland, their daughter Mary, and Mary's husband Harry Esperson rest, but according to all records that I have found, they are there.

Just as the sirens' song was powerful for Odysseus and his men, so were the melodic sounds of the waves hitting the beach for me and my children.  However we did not have the same protective benefits as Odysseus and his men.  Our ears were not plugged with beeswax nor were we bound by ropes to the mast of our "ship," and we gladly followed the sounds of the nearby beach.  The same beach where our ancestors once walked, and now near where they rest.  My search for their exact resting place is not done, but I'll be back.