DUANE
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Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Beseler family of Kendall County. Carl Joseph and Augusta Beseler packed up their lives, gathered their two sons, and made the crossing from Germany to Texas in 1848. Now that is a journey by any measure.
They landed in a new world and kept moving until they found their place, settling in Kendall County on a land grant sometime in the 1850s. That land grant would end up meaning a great deal more than just a homestead. The community of Welfare itself was established right there on the Beseler land grant.
The family's roots and the town's roots are one and the same. But hold on, because this family's story does not travel in a straight line. One of those two sons, Ernst, died in the Battle of Nueces.
The marker does not soften that, and neither will I. That is a hard thing to carry, and the family carried it. Ernst's brother, Carl Philipp, was still standing, and he got to work.
In the 1880s, Carl Philipp was instrumental in building Welfare into a railroad shipping point. That is the kind of thing that puts a small community on the map, literally and commercially. And Carl Philipp was not finished.
He served as justice of the peace, postmaster, county commissioner, and tax assessor. That is most of the machinery of local civic life, and one man holding it together. Today, the general store stands as one of the few physical remnants of the community of Welfare.
A family crossed an ocean, claimed a piece of ground, lost a son, built a town, and that store is still there to prove it.
What the marker says
Carl Joseph and Augusta Beseler and their two sons immigrated from Germany to Texas in 1848. They settled in Kendall County on a land grant in the 1850s. The community of Welfare was established on the Beseler land grant. The Beselers' son Ernst died in the Battle of Nueces. His brother Carl Philipp was instrumental in building Welfare into a railroad shipping point in the 1880s. Carl Philipp served as justice of the peace, postmaster, county commissioner, and tax assessor. The general store is among the few physical remnants of the community of Welfare. (1996)