These days Groom, Texas has about 500 people who call it home. I don’t know if the population has changed or not over the years. Maybe. Like other little towns in Texas, it’s always easier to tell you what big city it is near. Groom is 42 miles east of Amarillo. For example, many small town Texans will simplify it further for curious listeners and say, “I’m from Amarillo”, when, in fact, they’re from Groom. It’s a generalization, but it’s better than getting into the details of just where Groom is and why nobody knows where it is and how small it really is and all those other questions that clutter the conversation. People just say, “I’m from Amarillo.”
Sometime in the early 1900s–around 1908, I think–a big branch of my grandpa’s family moved to Groom, Texas, a couple hundred miles away from the cotton fields of Knox County. My great-grandpa who had brought his family to Knox County from their former lives in Missouri and Kansas at the tail end of the previous century wanted to farm big, but he wanted to farm wheat specifically. With roots in those states, he never much took to being a cotton farmer in Knox County. So he moved to Groom, Texas.
That’s one version of the story. Another version–reliable but unverifiable–suggests the move was made because it was time some of his eleven sons–most in their teenage years or in their twenties–got out of town. My grandmother married one of the sons, Tony, but she always said he was the best one in the bunch. She’d explain how he was quiet and easy going, shy and and a stand-up guy. Grandma never said anything harsh about the others and she didn’t say they were wild boys–but by drawing a clear contrast she opened the door to speculation on the fitness of the other boys in the family. Family folklore filled in some of the blanks in the story and strongly suggests the little town of Rhineland was too small for that many Kuehler boys.
Whatever the real cause or causes, my great-grandpa packed up his belongings after only nine years in Rhineland, as well as most of his boys, and he moved to Groom, Texas, where he could plant as much wheat as he wanted. Four of his older sons stayed behind, as they already were married and had small children. Their roots, although tender, were in the dirt of Knox County. By all accounts, the old man did well as a wheat farmer in his new place. Or well enough to satisfy his desire to be a wheat farmer. He stayed in Groom, Texas and he is buried in its soil. He died there in May of 1925 after an accident in the field. He was unloading a threshing machine when the horse that pulled the wagon got spooked and threw him off the wagon. His health failed after that incident. He was 77 years old at the time of his death, which means he already was 61 years old when he made his move to the wheat fields of Groom–not an age one usually picks up and starts over. After all, the popular phrase of the time was “Go west, young man!”, not “Go west, old man!.” That bit of information also augments the argument that it was time the Kuehler boys got out of town before they were run out of town.
I also know that Grandma told a story about a “kangaroo court” that convened one day in Rhineland to mete out justice to one or several of these Kuehler boys in Knox County. The impromptu court met beneath a big tree on the lot where the public school later would be built. One of the charges, it seems, was that unexplained fires had been started in the community and the blame was being put on these wild boys. Grandma always spoke with a disdain towards this kangaroo court. She didn’t say what the court determined–she saw the whole episode as one of injustice–but she did say most of the family left Rhineland soon after and moved to Groom, where their reputations could get a restart. She also made clear that the actual arsonist was discovered a short while later when he was caught red-handed trying to burn down his family’s home. She explained it as a mental problem that the young man had. Shamefaced by the facts, that family also soon left the small community for other parts. The exoneration was too late for the Kuehler boys.
Several of those boys, and some of their sisters, later married into the Britten clan that were in Groom. The Britton brothers–Nick and Matt–had moved to Groom, along with their families in 1907, a year before the Kuehlers arrived. The Brittens had come from Iowa. In time, five of the Kuehler children married five of the Britten children, three from Nick’s family, and two from Matt’s family. If you walk in St. Mary’s Cemetery in Groom, you’ll see many headstones with the Kuehler and Britten names inscribed on them. Very few of the monuments have other names, suggesting these two families took up most of the space, not only in the cemetery, but in Groom, Texas, at least in its early years.
The distance between Rhineland and Groom is a little less than 200 miles and about three hours by car. Of course, transportation in the early 1900s was a different matter and so the distance, while not longer in miles, was longer in time taken to travel. Still, there were occasional visits between the two places. I remember my Grandma telling the story of how Grandpa went to Groom for his mom’s funeral in 1925, where he became so sick the relatives thought he was having a heart attack. The truth was there was so much bickering between the brothers about the will and estate of Great-grandpa Kuehler that my grandpa–the quiet and peaceful one–became so overwrought and over-whelmed that his nerves almost got the better of him. He packed his bags soon enough and left for home. I know the squabble was serious enough that one of the brothers, Joe, changed the spelling of the family’s name, removing the “e” and returning the name to its original German form, “Kuhler.” He wanted it clear he wanted out of the family. His tombstone carries the changed spelling. Even in death, he wanted disassociated from his family.
Some of my aunts in their later years would talk about visits from their Grandma Kuehler when she would visit Rhineland. She would die thirteen years after her husband, in 1938, at the age of 82. These aunts only remember their grandmother as cranky and cantankerous, always complaining to their dad that his girls needed to turn down the radio upstairs because the noise bothered her. Pictures of the woman show a severe face, with never a smile. I, for my part, always have attempted to soften the criticism leveled against her. After all, this woman had twenty kids, sixteen of whom survived into adulthood, eleven of whom were boys. She did all the cooking, all the cleaning, all the sewing for her very large family. If she didn’t smile all that often, maybe she was worn out by all the work. Again, I never knew the woman, but her life could not have been easy. I know of no one today who has given birth to twenty kids.
My grandparents also visited Groom on special occasions, especially for weddings and funerals. These tended to be family reunions by their very nature. Farmers and people with livestock didn’t take vacations, so people reunited at funerals and less often at weddings. I don’t know how often they went to Groom, but it was often enough to keep up with the news of their relatives there. And “the Groom people”–as my grandmother habitually called the Kuehler relatives from there–visited Rhineland for the same reasons. When Grandma heard that “the Groom people” were coming to visit, she went into a near panic. She held the belief that some of the boys had married into money and their wives put on airs. I don’t know. But it was a strong belief with my grandma, not as strong as the birth of Jesus, but still strong. When word came that “the Groom people” were on their way, my grandma would clean the house thoroughly, get out fresh linens for everything in sight, and bring out “the good china” from her shelves. The seriousness of a visit from “the Groom people” was evidenced by this simple act. For the rest of the year, “the good china” stayed in the hunch and was ignored in the same way Cinderella was put out of sight by her stepsisters.
My mom began cooking at home when she was eleven years old. She took on this task when her next older sister, Ellen, married and moved out of the house. I’m sure my mom did a great job even then because she always was a good cook. But she tells of the time “the Groom people” came to visit and her gravy wasn’t the perfect dish Grandma wanted to put on the table. I don’t recollect the exact words my Grandma said to her about the gravy that was served to “the Groom people,” but they were memorable enough that my mom could tell the story seventy years later.
Later, when my mom married, some of “the Groom people” gave her a long table cloth as a wedding gift. The table cloth measured something like 120 inches, was made out of some kind of fancy linen, and was used not one time by my mom. When my grandmother saw the gift, she just shook her head and began to talk about those uppity Groom people and their ridiculous and useless gift. If anything, my grandmother was practical.
When my grandmother died, the china that she pulled off the shelf only for “the Groom people” was divided among her twelve children, each one getting a complete setting. I ended up with a piece, which I have in my cabinet. When I see it, I don’t think so much of the floral print or the daintiness of the piece. I think of “the Groom people.” Nobody else ever ate on that china. Long after my grandmother had died and her china for “the Groom people” had been divided among her children, I visited one of my aunts. She sat in her lazy-boy chair eating watermelon out of a bowl from that special china. I chuckled. What would Grandma have said?
About a year ago, I visited “the Groom people.” Of course, they’re all dead–or the ones I’m talking about here–so I had to visit them at the cemetery. I drove into Groom on a Sunday afternoon. Seeing the small size of the town, I was sure the cemetery would be easy to find. I was wrong. I assumed it would be near the Catholic church, since that seemed to be the custom in most old German communities. I found the Catholic church, but the cemetery was not nearby. A teenager was walking towards Main Street, so I asked him where the cemetery was. He gave directions, indicating it was a mile outside town. I found it, but as soon as I stepped onto the grounds, I knew it wasn’t the cemetery I was looking for. There were no “Kuehler” names on any headstones. I walked the rows and found no name I recognized. So, I drove back into town. I concluded now that there had to be two cemeteries–the town cemetery and the catholic cemetery. Surely I had been directed to the town cemetery. This second time into town I found a young man on a motorcycle who not only offered directions to the Catholic cemetery–also outside the town–but happily led the way on his motorcycle. As soon as I stepped through the gates of that cemetery, I knew I had found my family. There were a multitude of Kuehler names to be found on headstones as well as Brittons.
I walked through the cemetery without any rush, wanting to find as many family headstones as I could. And I found a lot. I took pictures of each to show my mom when I returned home. Her mind ever sharp, she told me who each person was and some story about each one. I listened and I felt a missing piece of the puzzle to my life had been found. Growing up, I knew a big branch of the family had lived in Groom, but I never met them and never went to Groom. These family members were “out there,” but there were complete strangers to me. The trip to see “the Groom people” made them come alive for me, if you can say that about a visit to a cemetery.
A number of years ago I had the good fortune of meeting a second cousin who had grown up in Groom. We’ve talked about our shared ancestry many times. Once, she told me that there are very few people left in Groom who carry the Kuehler surname. Her brother is one exception, she said. I assured her the name was still strong in other parts of the state. Still, there is some irony and sadness in knowing that the name almost has disappeared in a place where it was so strong a hundred years ago.
Family, as we all know is a strange beast, sometimes a kitty cat, sometimes a fierce lion. But we all belong to one, and there is no escape from it–not by distance, not by a name change, not by desire. It literally is in our DNA, and who we are is set in large part by those family origins. For this reason, one of my favorite books is called “Black Sheep & Kissing Cousins: How Our Family Stories Shape Us.” It’s a good read. In fact, it inspired me to share these stories about “the Groom people.” I don’t know how many black sheep or kissing cousins could be found among “the Groom people,” but I’m sure there were some. As we all know, every family has one. Some families, truth be told, have more than one.
— Jeremy Myers
Sunday Brunch 