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Alice Heuser’s memories of her ancestors

These are the memories of Alice Heuser Ertel of her Heuser and Textor ancestors.

Aunt Alice was my great-aunt, sister of my grandfather Alfredo. She may be regarded as the family genealogist at her time. A small family tree that she set up with the descendants of the immigrant couple Heinrich Carl Heuser and Maria Katherina Bartz was the first source I obtained to begin my research that resulted in this site.

The document is not dated, but due to a remark in the text, I have concluded that it was written in 1970.

The original document is written in Portuguese. I translated it and, in order to help understanding, I inserted some notes in italics and square brackets. I further inserted links to pages in the family tree.

From this point on, the report itself begins.

Carlos A Heuser, February 2021

[The Heusers]

My grandfather [Heinrich Carl Heuser] was a tall man, with brown eyes and a beard. My Grandma (“Grossmutter”) [Maria Katherina Bartz] was thin, with thick, very blond hair and sky blue eyes, which I still remember (Minchem Berends Schütz [Wilhelmine Christine Pauline Behrends] has the same blue eyes – she is the mother of the Captain Schütz of Varig). Minchen, my brother Emil [Emílio Heuser] and I are the only living grandchildren of Heinrich Carl Heuser (1970).

In 1913, when I was in Enkirch with Max [Max Ertel], we still visited the tombs of my great grandparents. But, after the war, when I was there again with Marieta [Marieta Ana Frantz], a bomb had destroyed the entire cemetery, as well as the old house of the Heuser Family. The family name Heuser had disappeared in Enkirch, but there were still some Heusers in the neighbouring Traben-Trarbach.

[The Textors]

I keep beautiful memories from the tales of my old friend, uncle Emílio Textor “da Serra”, the older brother of Grandma Schwerin Thompson [Clara Textor]. He came from Soledade where he lived to Santa Cruz to visit his son Ricardo [Ricardo Textor]. He visited me while he worked on the chest that is now at Nina’s house. At that time I was already engaged. He told me about “Gut Schönwalde” and knew a lot of poetry in “Pommerschplatt” [Pomeranian dialect]. His father [Adolf Friedrich Textor] was “Förster” [forester], but the reasons for his immigration are not known. Here in Porto Alegre, in the Chácara das Bananeiras, the Government maintained a sheep farm and from there my grandma Clara [Clara Textor] had her happiest childhood memories. She played at the Morro da Polícia [there is a more detailed account of the farm managed by Adolf Textor see this post (just in Portugese and German)].

I still keep the poetry album of my godmother Malvina Bartholomay, Clara’s sister, from her internship at Stettin in 1828 [this date must be incorrect, since Malvine was born in 1845 – it also seems unlikely that such a small child was sent for a boarding school, since the Textors emigrated in 1851] and ending in Porto Alegre with the last memory on August 10, 1884.

[This last paragraph has a slightly different wording in a typewritten version of the same text] I have an album of poems by Wilhelmine Johann Textor that belonged to my godmother Malvine Textor Bartholomay from the time she was in a boarding house in Stettin in 1828. The first entry in Brazil was made on July 12, 1854. Thereafter there were no entries.

The original document in Portuguese