DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm passing it straight along to you. There's a house sitting in Tarrant County with a story that starts in cotton and ends in a gift — but it takes a world war to get there, so buckle up. Herman Frerichs was a cotton exporter out of Bremen, Germany, and somewhere along the line he put down roots in Fort Worth.
In 1910 and 1911 he built himself a house — a proper one, the kind a man builds when he figures he's staying. And by all accounts, he was. Then came 1914.
The Frerichs family was over in Germany on vacation when the whole world decided to come apart at the seams. World War I broke out, and just like that, the family was not allowed to return to the United States. Not a choice they made.
Not a slow drift away. The door simply closed. Back in Fort Worth, the U.S. government moved in under the Alien Property Act and seized the house.
Held it for the duration of the war — years passing, the family on one side of an ocean they couldn't cross, their house on the other. When the war finally ended and the property was released, Frerichs sold it. In 1923, it passed to Mrs.
William G. Newby. And then Mrs.
Newby did something that turns this whole story on its axis. She gave the house to the Fort Worth Woman's Club — in memory of her husband. A cotton exporter's wartime house, frozen in place by an act of Congress, and it became a memorial to a man whose name it now carries.
That's the William G. Newby Memorial Building, and that is some history packed into four walls.
What the marker says
Herman Frerichs, a cotton exporter from Bremen, Germany, built this house in 1910-1911. He and his family were on vacation in Germany at the outbreak of World War I in 1914 and were not allowed to return to the United States. The U.S. government seized the house under the Alien Property Act and held it until the end of the war. Frerichs sold the property to Mrs. William G. Newby in 1923. She gave it to the Fort Worth Woman's Club in memory of her husband. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1967