We are excited to be connecting again with all of you. It’s been a long six months! We hope everyone on your radar screen is untouched by the virus, and getting back again to “business as usual”. Pictured below is one of the most iconic things about the Heritage Association: Friday lunch & desserts at the Cottage Kitchen. It is one of the things we all miss the most!

NOMINATIONS and MEMBERSHIP
Traditionally Heritage has held its annual meeting in the fall, providing an opportunity for the membership to visit and enjoy each other, and to vote upon the following year’s slate of officers. This year the vote will instead be held by mail, hopefully followed in December with a holiday party. Almost to a person, this year’s board has agreed to stay over for the year 2021, to complete the work we were all anticipating when the shutdown started in March.

Watch for an upcoming membership mailing, and your ballot. Please return your 2021 membership application the minute you get it? In the absence of Cottage Kitchen luncheons and a cancelled home tour, retaining every single one of our members is critical to getting HASM through this historic time. Thanks to the following 2020 board members, with the 2021 positions which they have agreed to fill. Nominations from the “floor” are always welcome. If you have any, again, please email info@heritagesanmarcos.org so we can properly incorporate them into the voting process. And be thinking about any nominations for 2020 Member of the Year and Community Volunteer of the Year.

President: Linda Coker
President-Elect: Debbie Austin
Secretary: To be announced
Treasurer: Michele Breihan
Riverwalk chair: Sue Cobb
Guild chair: Sherry Baebler
Membership chair: Renee Graham
Home Tour chair: Linda Jalufka
Communications: Cathy Dillon
Historian/archivist: Ellie Stewart
Merriman Cabin chair: Marlene Silcocks
Term expires 2021: Wayne Kraemer
Term expires 2021: Amy Meeks
Term expires 2022: Diana Baker
Term expires 2022: Russ Clark
Past President: Gary Germer
Lifetime Director: Kent Cox
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PS: we are looking for a detail-oriented HASM member available one Monday noon per month, to fill the role of board secretary. We promise luncheon friends, free chocolates, job satisfaction, interesting new pursuits, and a job that really matters. We also need computer and social media-savvy committee members, as well as an apprentice treasurer. Can you help? email crigrandecom@icloud.com. Let’s talk! 

PPS: We assume everyone in our current membership is here because you believe in the HASM mission. It is printed in the back of all yearbooks, though below is a blurry replica of this 1975 document. If you want this town’s customs, traditions, and architecture to survive and thrive, please consider inviting others to join? If everyone recruited JUST ONE new family unit, our strength would grow fast! Got new neighbors? Know anyone who wants new friends and purpose? Know anyone redoing a historic property? Email info@heritagesanmarcos.org so we can connect them with the membership crew.  

RIVERWALK PARKS COMMITTEE 

Heritage traditionally holds two remembrance celebrations every spring, honoring outstanding members recently lost to this world. This year, the first one (Arbor Day) honoring Patty Sherrill Sullivan, took place in lovely fashion right before the shutdown occurred. But the second one (the Tree of Honor) had to be postponed indefinitely. Honorees were slated to be Phyllis Whittaker, Jerry Sebek, and Charles Blue. It will still happen, the committee just isn’t sure when, and meanwhile, be sure to congratulate honoree’s families if you get the chance.

Veramendi Plaza is celebrating its own reopening by looking beautiful right now, with lots of blooms. Founder Frances Stovall’s garden alone, is worth going down for a stroll! Thankfully, on July 4 the city allowed the fences to be rearranged so that the always-anticipated flag display could take place.

RANDOM CLOSING THOUGHTS

-Since many homes in the Spring Lake are over 50 years old, the area already qualifies as an historic district. Who knew? 
-Cities all over this country have recently suffered catastrophic damage to their historic downtowns, and their communal life. Let’s all pray for their irreplaceable losses, and work toward continued peace and beauty here at home in San Marcos. 
-Remember Heritage in your estate planning. What better way to help impact the future of our favorite town? 
-44 First Floors: the 2021 spring tour is going to be very different, and so appropriate! Taking place all over the downtown, in some of the existing 44 vacant and restoration-eligible first floors, it will feature stories and photos about the families associated with the buildings and how they evolved over the years. Wear your masks and stand back if that’s still necessary in 6 months, but don’t miss this great chance to come learn about the history of San Marcos! ​

Virtual Hugs!
Your communications crew
​Cathy Dillon, editor 512-787-6294

Hi friends-- There is a lot of news this week, some of it urgent.  We hope you'll read all the way through to the end,  

Loss of Two Faithful Heritage Members

Most notably, during this past week San Marcos lost two long-time Heritage members, Bettye Nagy and Rouye Rush.  Both women were such significant contributors to this organization, and it's as if two bright lights have gone out. Rouye's death has only just occurred. At this writing no details are available to us, except that arrangements will be a memorial service which isn't yet scheduled.  

Bettye's services will be held at Pennington Funeral Home on Tuesday morning, Jan. 21, at 11 a.m. Bettye was a force to be reckoned with in all that she did. This retired, decorated Naval officer served the Heritage Board as President in 1994, the Guild as Chairman in 2011, and was Member of the Year in 2011. In between those years, she was active every year on different groups and projects. In 2019, at age 93, this woman of her word with the wonderful laugh, was still working with the Riverwalk group. She  will always be remembered fondly.  

Service will be held January 21, 2020, 11 a.m. at Pennington Funeral Home, 323 N. Comanche St., San Marcos.  Food and fellowship will follow, at the Price Center, 222 W. San Antonio Street.
Flowers may be sent to Pennington Funeral Home. Memorial contributions can be made to Hays County Food Bank, 220 Herndon Street, San Marcos TX 78666, the Price Center, 222 W. San Antonio St, San Marcos, TX 78666, or the charity of your choice.

Godspeed, Bettye, and thank you from the bottom of many Heritage hearts.

For Bettye's full obituary, click here. 

Cottage Kitchen News

The Cottage Kitchen reopened last week for the winter/spring season, polished like a copper penny after being closed for a roof replacement. Beautiful new wooden shingles make the place look great! Thanks to all those who moved the building's contents to safety during construction, and then had to put it all back in place.  And thanks to the City of San Marcos for funding the new roof, which should last for many years.       ​

January Cottage Kitchen Luncheon Schedule
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January 10    Heritage Board served delicious gumbo, rice, and cornbread

January 17    Mountain Laurel Garden Club served King Ranch Chicken

January 24    SM Lions Club will be serving hamburgers with all the fixings, plus beans and potato salad and lots of great dessert!

January 31    Host group still needed...suggestions welcome

We hope to see you this Friday and most every Friday, between 11 and 1. Eat lunch, or call in 512-392-4295 for takeout or a dinner box!   We promise great meals and even better socializing.  Want to get involved in preserving San Marcos? Coming to the CK on Fridays is a great way to begin. If you come in the door alone, you won't be alone long! 

We Don't Want to Lose You!

This week marks the end of the yearly Heritage membership drive. If your membership application wound up at the bottom of a stack of papers, dig it out and get it returned pronto! The Heritage Yearbook is such a valuable tool, but if you aren't paid up by the end of this week, you won't be in it this year. If you can't find your form, here are two options:

1) email membership chair amymmeeks@yahoo.com, who can get it done for you in a flash even including taking a credit card number over the phone (never email or text a card number)

2) go online to www.heritagesanmarcos.org  and print out the one-page application form then return it with the $35 fee (either send a check or write in a credit card number)

Want to Get Involved?
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Want to get involved and make a difference? YOU ARE SO NEEDED! Lots of committees need help.  
       
Arguably the three most critical needs are these: someone with website or social media savvy to join the Communications team; someone with bookkeeping abilities to assist treasurer Michele Breihan; and an upbeat outgoing person to help with Membership phone calling. We want to get as many members as possible involved in this year's activities!  None of those appeal?

How about joining a new social events and parade committee that will be lots of fun. Or try this: the  Landmarks group needs a chairman (this is fun also....it doesn't take much time, and you will get to discuss and weed through recently restored structures.)  If interested in any of this, call the CK phone number, and the right person will be prompted to call you back. There are any number of Heritage teams who would be elated to have you join in. Go to the website, and hunt up the list of all the committees that make up this organization, then just pick one!

As you can see, Heritage is unique in that doesn't have regular boring meetings to sit through. Instead, it has numerous committees and projects to choose from. And THAT's what makes it interesting! At the bottom of the yearly application form is a list of things you can volunteer for, with every degree of intensity from "total immersion" to "meets once a year." Sign up, sign on, BUT if nobody calls you, don't be shy or think you're being ignored (soooo unintentional!), call the Cottage Kitchen number 512-392-4295 and tell the trusty machine what area interests you most. The machine and its human handler will get your request rolling in the proper direction, because you are needed!

The preservation challenge we all face, will take more than a village, it will take a whole town full of enthusiastic passionate people. We want you to be one of them! As this year's president Linda Coker told her new board last Saturday, "this organization was founded by some very mouthy people. We need to get back to those roots. We need to make things happen."

'Til next week!           

The Communication Crew   which sure does need a social media person  

Our city is developing a new land development code which contains a provision that many feel will adversely affect any of our single family neighborhoods. It will especially impact the historic areas as they are so close to downtown and thus ripe for more "walkable, bikeable" DENSE development.

The problem item is something called "Neighborhood Districts." These districts are designed to permit more infill on each lot which in turn will open the way to fewer single-home residences and more investor-owned, tightly-packed residential lots. One protection against this is something already within the Master Plan addressed three years ago and that is "neighborhood character studies," or in-depth attempts to define the makeup of existing neighborhoods in the city. Despite the fact that character studies were called for in the Master Plan, they are being resisted at City Hall, but not to do them before adopting Neighborhood Districts is to open the door to apartments, etc. being built anywhere they will fit.

1. Neighborhood districts include smaller lots and houses that are supposed to increase affordable housing and diversity in existing neighborhoods.
2. BUT, these smaller lots and houses have a high probability of becoming investor owned which would drive up rents and therefore not provide affordable housing.
3. Neighborhood character studies should be completed before any neighborhood districts should be considered.
4. Neighborhood districts are not compatible with the character of historic neighborhoods and sites. They will threaten the ability we have to maintain and protect these historic areas.

The San Marcos Daily Record has an online poll regarding this issue. Those who want to complete it can visit the SMDR web site. The poll is simply asking for a yes or no vote: 
Yes, in favor of the character studies
No, in favor of the districts

You can vote even if not in the city limits as this has to do with future coding, zoning and development in San Marcos.

--Submitted by Thea Dake, Heritage Life Member

Springtown, the brainchild of John Drayton Pitts, was Hays County’s first residential development. Between 1850 and 1856 eighteen families, mostly friends and relatives of John Pitts, came from Georgia along with their slaves to settle at Stringtown. (Pitts had received a large land grant from General Burleson). These energetic settlers built a self-sufficient community, based on their former Southern lifestyle. Their houses, strung along 8 miles of the stage-coach route from Austin to San Antonio, which led to its distinctive name. [see map of Stringtown]
 
Over the years, from their homes fronting the road, Stringtown inhabitants viewed a constant cavalcade of travelers on foot, driving ox-drawn wagons, riding horses or mules, and in the stage coaches on their regular daily schedules.  Traveling the dusty road, the passersby were assured of a welcome and a refreshing pause as horses were changed at the James Matthew Purdy’s stage stop or an overnight stay in a private home for individual wayfarers.  It is said that the James brothers, Jesse and Frank, overnighted with the Kone family.  The diminutive curiosity, Tom Thumb, his wife, and his liveried driver supposedly drove through in a little gold Victoria 31, a type of elegant carriage popular in the second half of the 19th century, drawn by two shiny black Shetland ponies.
 
In the 1850s, Stringtown, although lacking urban amenities, was a viable community long before San Marcos emerged as an important town.  Stringtown had more inhabitants and a superior school. It took the Civil War and the arrival of Isaac Julian in 1873 to turn things around. Julian used his newspaper, San Marcos Free Press, and its contacts with the wider U.S. media to promote the city to good effect.
 
The pioneers could weather any storm, it seems, except the effects of the Civil War.  Their economy depended on their slaves.  Emancipation was the beginning of the end for Stringtown. Many of the early settlers moved into San Marcos, becoming important figures in all walks of life, several  going on to  build elegant new houses, especially in the Belvin Street Historical District.  But Stringtown still existed when one of its most famous moments occurred . . . when thousands of young Texans were marching off to fight WWI, it is said that the head of the line was entering Austin when the tail of it was still in San Antonio.
 
Today, there is nothing left except two historic homes and a cemetery. The entrance to Kissing Tree sits right about where the old school was.