August Siemering

August Siemering ( born February 8, 1830 in Brandenburg, † September 19, 1883 in San Antonio ( Texas) ) was a German American author, journalist and newspaper editor. He is regarded as the father of Texas Press.

Family

He married on June 12, 1859 in Gillespie County Clara Sagittarius ( born August 14, 1843 † May 12, 1935 ), the daughter of the immigrant Ludwig Sagittarius, a local teacher. The couple had two sons and six daughters.

Life

As a liberal and free-thinkers Siemering emigrated after the March Revolution of 1848 as one of the so-called Forty- Eighters to Texas, where he arrived in 1851. The first ten years he was a teacher at the School of Sisterdale, a settlement of the Latin settlement and first teacher at the new school in Fredericksburg ( Texas). The latter was opened in 1856 by the Mainz Adelsverein. In Sisterdale he belonged to the group of Ernst Kapp, Ottmar von Behr, Julius Froebel and Edgar von Westphalen. Siemering sympathized with the Republicans and campaigned against slavery - particularly committed to the "State Song Festival " of 1854 in San Antonio.

On April 12, 1854, he applied for a 24 - year-old in Gillespie County citizenship, which was granted to him, however, until three years later on 18 March 1857. In 1861, he appeared as a First Lieutenant in the Confederate Army. On May 7, 1862 he was admitted as a Second Lieutenant in Taylor's Battalion of the 1st Cavalry Texas. On 4 May 1864 he resigned from there again "because of short-sightedness and a weak constitution ". He could see far only two or three steps at night apparently, so was offered in the office him a post

August 12, 1865 to August 18, 1866 Siemering Chief Justice was at the County Court ( District Court ) of Bexar County. In 1865 Siemering also founded the German -language weekly newspaper San Antonio Free Press for Texas, which was to develop into the leading Republican newspaper of the southern states and today exists as San Antonio Express -News. Outstanding were his comments and Sunday considerations that are now counted among the classics of German - American literature. He also collaborated with the San Antonio Express and wrote articles for other newspapers. He has also written several short stories and articles that should make known his new home in Texas Germany. At the age he had begun to write a summary of his Texan studies and observations, but this work remained unfinished.

Siemering was a man of strict conviction, active and competent, was viewed as a political leader and held a number of public offices. Since he was a staunch Republican in Democratic South and his writings were mostly written in German, however, he was measured in his work and his personality greatly underestimated.

Bibliography

• San Antonio Free Press for Texas, weekly newspaper, San Antonio ( Texas), 1863.
• The hermit of the cavern; a novel of the early sixties abounding in dramatic situations, Naylor Printings, San Antonio ( Texas) in 1932.