Maria von Blucher's Corpus Christi: Letters from the South Texas Frontier, 1849-1879

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 raids, the chaos of the American Civil War, and the joys and heartbreaks of family life. Her letters record the woman's side of pioneer life and stand as an elegant testimony to the role played by Germans in the settlement of South Texas, while also providing an intimate look at early Corpus Christi. Bruce S. Cheeseman has edited and annotated more than two hundred of the von Blucher family's papers on deposit at the Mary and Jeff Bell Library at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. In her life and in her letters, Maria von Blucher joined all of the courageous pioneer women who helped to lay the foundation of Texas communities. These letters unerringly draw a Texas landscape that is gone forever.