Gustave Dreyling, Sr. (CSA)

From Houston Time Portal.net:

The Dreyling family came to Texas with the immigration of Gustave Dreyling, Sr., born in Werxhausen, Hannover in the Rhineland Palatinate. He left Bremen in May 1856 and arrived in Galveston on 10 June 1856. He was a barber by training, an occupation h offered some flexibility in where he chose to work. He soon moved about 100 miles southwest to Matagorda where the Colorado River empties into The Gulf of Mexico. In 1859 he married Theresa Gracy Freeman, daughter of Joseph and Rowena Freeman, themselves also German immigrants. Gustave and Theresa had a daughter Emma Theresa in 1861, but her mother died when she was an infant. In the Civil War Gustave served as a private in Brown’s Cavalry in the defense of Fort Esperanza at the confluence of Matagorda Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. There Pass Cavalo was the shipping access to Indianola, at the time rival to Galveston in number of citizens and importance of commerce on the Gulf Coast.

Gustave married again, his second wife was Annie Maax, daughter of John and Louisa Maax, German immigrants as well, then living at Indianola. In the 1870’s coastal communities were frequently battered by hurricanes, and in 1875 Indianola was hit by a strong hurricane which killed 400 citizens and caused great destruction. This storm was followed in 1886 by an even worse storm which basically obliterated the town. Of course, the worst storm of all was the 1900 Galveston hurricane which caused the death of more than 6,000 residents, still the worst disaster to affect an American city.

Gustave was most likely primarily German-speaking, but no doubt was learning English fast with the help of his customers in the barber’s chair. He moved to Galveston before 1870, and he and Annie had children: Louis G. (1868), Susie (1870), Max Strauss (1871), Gus, Jr. (1875), and Leo (1878). By 1880 the family was in Houston where the children grew up. Emma Theresa married Theodore Dreyling, himself also from Germany, but from a different area and family than Gustave. The Dreyling, Settegast, and Binz families were Catholic, most of them attending Annunciation Catholic Church on Texas Avenue.

The Dreyling family members followed diverse career paths. Gustave Dreyling, Jr. owned Model Laundry, while his brother Louis followed his father’s occupation as barber. Max operated a billiard parlor at 1711 Caroline until he took a job for the railroad. Theodore and Emma ran a grocery store on Pease Street. Glenwood Cemetery is the final resting place for Gustave’s descendants, except for Theodore’s family which is in the adjacent German Cemetery (now Washington Cemetery): Emma (1861-1943), Theodore (1856-1940). The Dreyling family plot in Glenwood holds Gustave, Sr. (1834-1902), Annie (1849-1885) and their children: Louis (1868-1921), Max (1871-1935); Gus, Jr. (1875-1925) and Blanche (1878-1957) are in the Binz-Settegast family plot. ​