“A true story of the courtship of Fritz Luckenbach and Anna Nauwald and their life in Menard as told by a grandson.” -Jake Landers
Fritz and Anna celebrated their Golden Wedding in 1938 in the ballroom of the Bevans Hotel with as many guests as the structure was designed to bear. One of the highlights of the celebration was a skit put on by the four sons-in-law. Each one had a verse depicting his own situation with a chorus: “Oh four lucky fellows you see, And our wives are as lucky as we, For if we go broke, All we do is soak,The head of the wife’s familee”.
By then Fritz had acquired the Jackson Ranch near the 5-mile crossing with land irrigated by the Ditch Company of which he was secretary for many years. Closer to town were his pecan orchards with several hundred trees of improved varieties planted in the 1920’s with water supplied by The Ditch.
The Davis Ranch, 15 miles south of town, was managed by J. C. Appleman who had roomed with Fritzie at Texas A&M and became almost a member of the family. Halfway to Junction was the Baker Ranch in a joint venture with Ed Mears, but when he died suddenly in the 1930’s, with no agreement on paper and Fritz heavily invested, the land was retained in the Mears Estate and his investment was partially returned.
In his earlier years he had made many small loans, mostly for purchases of tools and equipment, and some to young couples just starting out. A postal employee told me that Fritz loaned him the money to buy his first house when the banks had turned him down. In his later years he was often seen sitting in front of the hardware store making notes in his little black book as a payment was made. He had grown in wealth as he had helped to make the community successful.
Fritz had always tended to be cautious of using the banks. Apparently during the years of WWII he because suspicious enough of the security of his wealth that he began hiding money in fruit jars under the big house. In 1948 son Fritzie was able to retrieve the money which had become dirty and moldy from the damp conditions. He divided it up, and Emmie, my mother, tells of washing her share and ironing it to dry it out. She joked that she could imagine federal agents coming down the ranch road and catching her laundering money. She never mentioned the amount, but she said it paid tuition for my sister’s first year at TCU.
Fritz had no will. Son Fritzie guided the division of his assets among the five children after many earlier family meetings in which his main directive was “no squabbling”. Fritz passed away on March 7, 1951 and Anna on March 21, 1956. Their love letters were discovered in a box in the big house in 1997, one hundred and ten years after they were written.
A fund is soon to be announced in their memory titled “Trees for Menard Parks and the Ditch, Planting, Pruning, Removing” in the Menard Bank.
-Jake Landers, grandson and oldest living descendant of Fritz and Anna.