J. J. Haeusler

October 4, 1861 - May 25, 1918

James J. "Jim" Haeusler is my great grandfather, father of my maternal grandmother, Christine Heisler Repschleger, and husband of Elizabeth (Lizzie) Pagel Heisler. He is the son of a Anton Haeusler, a Baptist preacher who immigrated from Germany to New York in the 1850s. His mother, Sophie, was also a German immigrant. James was born in New York, but lived most of his early years near St. Louis, Missouri. He was the fourth of six children, with older brothers Paul and Samuel, and sisters Sarah, Hannah and Martha. By 1880, the Haeusler family found their way to Lavaca County. That's where Jim met Lizzie and settled down to raise a family in Breslau. Over time, "Haeusler" evolved to "Heisler".

I remember Granny telling me when I was young that her grandfather Haeusler was a minister, she wished her parents had named her Sophie after her grandmother, she was her father's favorite, and her father died in an insane asylum. Mother told me that her grandfather Haeusler had a cotton gin in Breslau, and that if I had been a boy, my name would be James. These are only pieces of information about the Haeuslers that I had when I began my family research.

It was the insane asylum story that peeked my curiosity. I assumed that this was an exaggeration - that perhaps Granny's dad was an alcoholic and died in facility for people suffering from substance abuse. But then I found his death certificate, and there it was. He did indeed die in an insane aslyum - the Southwestern Insane Asylum in San Antonio. I learned that the Texas legislature passed a bill in 1889 allocating funds for a state mental hospital in San Antonio, putting the wheels in motion for this state of the art (in its time) facility, which was opened in 1892 with the capacity to serve 500 patients on grounds covering 640 acres. By the time of Jim Haeusler's death there in 1918, the facility's capacity had been increased to 1800, and a training school for nurses in psychiatry was based there. Over the years, the facility was continually expanded after periods of over-crowding,, and suffered through years of inadequate funding. It still exists as the San Antonio State Hospital although many of its original buildings have been abandoned.

Great grandfather Haeusler's death certificate lists chronic nephritis as the cause of death, with epilepsy as the underlying condition. It says that he had lived at the facility for seven and a half years. His obituary says that "Mr. Haeussler was for a long time a valued citizen of our county, living at Breslau up to 10 years ago, when his mind failed him and for the past eight years he has been an inmate of the S.W. Insane Asylum. He has many friends in Lavaca and other counties who grieve with the bereaved relatives."

I have wondered if a state mental hospital meant that he was committed by court action. Just this week, I learned that this is indeed what happened via this short article in the January 13, 1911, Hallettsville Herald newspaper:

James J. Hauessler, who for many years resided at Breslau and conducted the gin there, was adjudged of unsound mind Friday by the county court and ordered sent to the asylum. Sheriff Houchins escorted him to San Antonio Tuesday.

Wow. I have visited the District Clerk's office at the Lavaca County courthouse in Hallettsville and paged through record books without finding a reference to this action. Now that I have a specific date, I will go back to that search with these questions in mind: 1) What made it necessary to legally commit him to a mental hospital? 2) Who initiated this action? and 3) Was it assumed he would be locked away for life or was his condition being treated?

While I'm determined to fill in those blanks in his story, I do not want his story to be only about this tragic ending. Since I cannot go back to Granny's kitchen table to ask her to tell me more about her father, my only avenue for learning more is genealogical research and a gold-mine I recently discovered - the Texas Digital Newspaper Program that makes digitized versions of Texas newspapers available to the public via North Texas State University's Portal to Texas History. It is mainly through perusing through three decades of newspapers that I have been able to get to know Jim Haeusler as a colorful, industrious, community-minded man.

Jim Haeusler was described as a ginner, miller, and a well-borer. He initially worked for the Henkel gin in Breslau but at some time must have purchased the gin and surrounding 10 acres of land. He purchased another gin that he transported to his property to expand his gin, making it one of the most substantial gins in the county. The family home and an enormous barn were on the same property.

The Hallettsville newspapers from that time reported on every little thing - so I learned about measles that struck Jim and three of the children, a huge barbecue with 300 guests, a parade of 31 decorated mule-driven wagons with cotton seed from the Haeusler gin that made its way through downtown Hallettsville and then on to Shiner where seed was left at an oil compress, and a time that Jim fell from a telephone pole and hurt his arm. I also learned that Jim was instrumental in improving the Breslau School, serving as the President of the Breslau Board of Education in the mid 1890's. He also was a candidate for Lavaca County Sheriff and served as the chair of the Breslau Election Commission.

Perhaps most interesting to me were the articles about Jim as a well-driller. In 1897 he was awarded a contract by the City of Hallettsville to construct a new artesian water well that would enable all city residents to be supplied with water. He was paid $750.00 to drill a well that would produce 30,000 gallons of water of day. This must have been a big deal, as the Houston newspapers reported on this contract. As might be expected, there were mishaps along the way, but eventually the well was finished, and another contract followed to restore the original well to good operation. My assumption is that cotton ginning was a seasonal activity, and that well-drilling happened during the gin's off-season.

I may be reading too much into newspaper reports, but it seems that the 1890's were Jim Haeusler's hey-day, with something else going on in the early years of the twentieth century. It was in those years that his daughter Rosa died, with the newspapers describing the family as inconsolable; how must that have been for Jim? Shortly after, Jim gave his gin business to his oldest son Theodore, and went to Houston looking for work. He traveled to West Texas for work, renovating old gins. He lived for a while in Skidmore, a little town about 140 miles south of Breslau - presumably working on a well there. He traveled to Port Arthur to visit Granny in the year after she and Paw were married. The picture that I'm seeing from those years is of someone searching, drifting, somewhat unmoored.

Newspaper reports began to mention him as "formerly of Breslau" during those years. And then came the report that he was found of unsound mind and committed to the Southwestern Insane Asylum.

Obviously, there are still many missing parts to this story, but I'm writing this with a new sense of curiosity about a man with an adventurous spirit who was determined to provide for his family and do his part to improve his little Breslau community. I like to think about he and my great grandmother throwing a party for 300 people at their place in Breslau with my seven year old Granny and her brothers and sisters gleeful to take part. I can imagine the fun of organizing a 31 wagon parade and then decorating the wagons to add a spark of fun to what could have been a normal ginner's task of carting your seed to the seed press. That's the way I want to remember him, my great-grandfather Jim.