Ancestors

George Louis Haass

George Louis Haass was born on 25 November 1837, the youngest son of George Henry Haass and Anna Maria Schwarz. His father was a cabinetmaker and policeman of Dürkheim, in the Bavarian Palatinate on the west bank of the Rhine. His memorial gives Munich as his own birthplace. His son's death certificate in 1948 called him a native of "Alsace Lorraine," which reflects how the Castroville families came to describe themselves rather than where he was born.

In 1852, when George was fourteen, his parents brought the family to Texas. They joined his father's brothers Valentine and Phillip in Medina County, in the colony Henri Castro had founded at Castroville in 1844. In 1856 the father and sons went into ranching. Indians raided the ranch and took all their stock, and the settlers who rode after them got back only two horses. His father never went back to ranching.

George married Anna Maria Taeschler, a Swiss girl who had come to Texas as a small child. They farmed near Castroville and had twelve children between 1860 and 1882. Five of them died young: Louis at fifteen, Lina at twelve, Paulina as a baby, Walter Julius at eighteen, and a son born in 1862. Those who lived were Elise (Sauer), Emma (Graff), Hortense (Weinacht), Phillip E., Anna (Loessberg), Louisa Rose, Lissette Pauline (Bilhartz) and Adella Jessie (Heath). A county history of 1907 lists him among his father's sons as "George, also a stock farmer."

A photograph from about the 1900s shows him in old age, white-bearded and seated beside Anna, with grown children standing behind them. He died on 11 February 1925, at 87, and was buried in the Haass family cemetery near Castroville. His stone reads simply "Father. Geo. Haass. Born Nov. 25, 1837. Died Feb. 11, 1925."

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Cite: Heirology, "George Louis Haass (1837-1925)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/george-louis-haass-1837-1925-14ffc8.