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My Grandpop By Tommy Joe “Tom” AdamsEditor’s note: Joseph M. Boer was born April 28, 1877 in Germany. His mother, Hedwig, died shortly after he was born. His father, August Boer, had been preparing to immigrate to Texas. However, a newborn baby would surely die if he were taken for the long journey across the Atlantic without his mother. His chances of living, even in Germany, without a mother to nurse him were very poor at best. So August Boer left the baby Joe with relatives in Germany, along with money to bury the baby when he died. He and the older children, Anna, Martha, Paul, Peter and Mary left on the boat for the new world. The family settled in Central Texas and many years later, Paul died at age 18 of T.B. To ease August’s grief, someone suggested he write to Germany to see if Joseph lived. The day the letter arrived in Germany, a relative had Joseph dress in his better clothes and took him to a photographer to have his picture taken. When the picture was developed, the relative wrote the simple message “He lives” on the back and mailed it. His family was overjoyed and sent money for his passage. The fourteen-year-old Joseph and an older cousin booked passage on a steamer and joined his father, brothers, and sisters in Texas.In 1941, following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, my dad took mom to live with her dad Joe Boer, Sr. We lived with him and aunt Carolina for several weeks, returning to Austin when dad deemed it safe for us to do so. There was somewhat of an anti-German sentiment as well as anti-Japanese sentiment in some parts of Austin. Thus dad deemed it well for us to “get out of Dodge” so to speak. I remember Grandpop coming home each weekday from working in Red Rock. I would get so excited when he turned into the lane from the Old Red Rock Road (now Goertz Lane), I would run out into the driveway and await his arrival. As I stood in the middle of the drive, he would always “aim” his Model A at me and gun the motor as if he were going to run over me. I knew he was not going to run over me but I was still panic stricken and would run as fast as I could to get out of his way. He would just die laughing at me. He would change clothes, pick up the “slop buckets” and head down to the hog pens with me following. After that chore came supper time, then bath time, then Rosary time before bedtime. We all knelt by the benches to pray, then mom and I went to the middle bedroom to sleep. In later years, after I had grown and was bootlegging alcohol to dry counties, I would go to see Grandpop and Aunt “Caroline” as often as I could. No matter the day of the week, or weekend, Grandpop and Aunt Caroline would be on one of the porches praying the Rosary. Most times, I just shut my mouth and joined them in the prayers. No matter how far outside the law I fell with my bootlegging activities, I never failed to visit Grandpop and Aunt Caroline. And I never failed to pray with them each time I visited them. On the weekends, many is the time that an older gentleman would come to visit also. He always called Grandpop “Uncle Joe” and I was told by Grandpop to call the gentleman “Uncle Rudolph”. Uncle Rudolph would always join in praying the Rosary with all of us. In fact, it seemed to be the main reason he came to visit was to pray with Grandpop and Aunt Caroline. I was just an added voice to GOD. Grandpop died February 18, 1963 and Aunt Sally (Boer) Bayer, my godmother, told me in 1994 that she still worried about the state of her father’s soul, as he had not attended church on Sundays and Holydays. I reminded her that he was unable to stand or kneel and could only sit for short periods of time without having to move to ease the pain in his back. She said she prayed for his soul every day. I told her of how faithful he was to the Rosary, always saying at least 15 decades of the Rosary daily. I told her that he and Aunt Caroline were two people who were more devoted to Our Lady and her Rosary than anyone else that I know. They had said several 15 decade Rosaries daily that I personally knew of. I then told Aunt Sally that I felt that instead of praying for her dad, she should be praying to him as to any other saint. I feel the same about Aunt Caroline and all my mother’s brothers and sisters; they should all be prayed to as saints. Though not so faithful as to say 15 decades of the Rosary daily, my convert wife, Marie, and I try to say 5 decades as often as we possibly can prior to bedtime. Without the example set by my Grandpop, Aunt Caroline, my mother and my convert dad, I doubt that my anger for people of the past could be held in check without the Rosary. We have at least one daughter who is quite faithful in praying the Rosary, while we have one daughter in Heaven, Julia Marie, who watches over us in all our activities and prayers. |
