Mary Bryan Stafford, AUTHOR

Mary Bryan Stafford is seventh generation Texan and a member of The Daughters of the Republic of Texas. She graduated from The College of William and Mary in Virginia with degrees in English and Spanish, but got back to Texas on the fast train. She and her husband now live the Hill Country near Austin where she spends her time writing and training her two horses.

An award-winning author, she was a quarterfinalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest and is published in the anthology Women Write about the Southwest, winner of the Willa Award, in the anthology The Noble Generation III and many times in the Texas Poetry Calendar.

A Wasp in the Fig Tree, an intimate view into the South Texas politics of the Parrs told from the point of view of a young girl, has been awarded the 2014 Best Historical Fiction by Texas Association of Authors in addition to its winning First Place in the 2012 Writers’ League of Texas Contest in mainstream fiction as well as First Place in the Pacific Northwest Writers Association contest for coming-of-age fiction.

Her second novel, The Last Whippoorwill, set in the early 1900’s is the story of a mother and daughter and a winner in the Pacific Northwest Writers Association contest for historical fiction.

In her latest novel, The Music Box, Mary Bryan Stafford, in collaboration with Jerrilyn Burrer McLerran, Fredericksburg native and descendant of early Fredericksburg settlers, tells the story of two women, as contentious as the North and South, who must survive when their husbands leave to fight on opposite sides in the Civil War. Romance brings them to the frontier—the dream of promised land—but the cost is beyond their imagination. The Music Box is awarded First Place in Historical Fiction 2022 by The Texas Authors Institute of History. marylynn@mstafford.net http://www.marybryanstafford continued from page 11 a blacksmith shop. In addition to her eight children, two hired blacksmiths were living with them.

I grew up in South Texas and was a niece in the infamous family of patrón George Parr, the Duke of Duval. I am seventh generation Texan and, although a member of The Daughters of the Texas Republic, I wandered away for a while and graduated from The College of William and Mary in Virginia with degrees in English and Spanish. I live at home in the Texas Hill Country with my husband, two horses and a couple of shepherds.

In 1873, Louise Wille married a blacksmith named Phillip Jacob Gass, who emigrated from Nassau, Prussia. By 1880, Jacob was running the blacksmith shop while Louise maintained the household. In addition to her three daughters, Louise’s brother, Otto, lived there and worked as a laborer at the blacksmith shop. Maire was living a few doors away with her two youngest children, Hugo and Ida. Augusta (Doebbler), Sarah (Karger), and Hermine (Norris) married between 1875 and 1878 and lived with their husbands on nearby farms. Otto acquired 150 acres near Waring in 1883 and married Bertha Zoeller in 1886.

Bertha Wille married a blacksmith named Andrew Anderson in 1890. By 1900, Andrew ran the blacksmith shop and Marie lived with them. Jacob Gass continued to operate a blacksmith shop at his farm that he bought in 1882. When the 1910 census was taken, Marie lived with her daughter Louise Gass. Jacob Gass was 64 and still owned a blacksmith shop. In 1920, she was living with her son Otto, and it was there that she died in July 1923. She is buried beside Hermann in the Comfort Cemetery.

EACH YEAR, DURING THE MONTHS OF MAY THROUGH OCTOBER, VISITORS CAN WATCH THE NIGHTLY EMERGENCE OF A COLONY OF MEXICAN FREETAILED BATS AT THE OLD TUNNEL STATE PARK.

AS THEY EMERGE, THE BATS SPIRAL UPWARDS IN A COUNTER-CLOCKWISE DIRECTION TO GAIN ALTITIUDE. AERIEL PREDATORS, LIKE REDTAILED HAWKS, SOMETIMES CATCH THE BATS IN THE AIR, WHILE TERRESTRIAL PREDATORS, LIKE RACCOONS, WILL FEED ON THE FALLEN BATS. RANGERS LEAD NIGHTLY PROGRAMS ON THE BATS DURING THESE MONTHS THAT BEGIN 30 MINUTES PRIOR TO THE EMERGENCE.

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