Maria von Blücher's Corpus Christi: Letters from the South Texas Frontier, 1849-1879

In 1849, a young German bride and her husband stepped off a ship in Corpus Christi Bay to establish their home in the new frontier settlement. For the next three decades Maria von Blücher wrote letters home describing the hardships of droughts and Indian and bandit raids, the chaos of the American Civil War, the discomforts of pioneer living, the joys and heartbreaks of family life, and the development of a town that her descendants would help to build into a thriving city.

Her letters recor...