M for Mason County

A few years ago, when I started reading a genealogy-type book dedicated to the people who lived in the County, somehow, I found several names quite familiar. No, I had not come across them before, but the more I read about some of the early pioneers, the more it felt as if I had known them before. And it was like meeting them again.

 

When I looked at a photograph included in the book (a family, parents with their children), I felt great sadness. What was more, the one girl looked familiar. Why? I do not know. Maybe because she looked a bit like my mom when she was little? Or maybe not. No, I did not know then who those people were. So I looked closer to find out. The family in the photo was Friedrich Heinrich Kensing, his wife Mathilda, and their children. The "familiar" girl was the oldest child of Mr. and Mrs. Kensing. Bertha.

In Mason, TX

Subsequently, I started researching and writing about those early pioneers. On my blog, you can find quite a few posts dedicated to them.

I am not related to those persons. It is just that feeling of undefined connection. Does it have anything to do with what I mentioned in my previous post "H for Hill Country"? Did we know each other in my previous life? Who knows.

We visited Mason sometime ago. No special sentiments there, though. I liked the old city center, but it is the hills and the countryside that talk to me more.

Mason County Courthouse

PS
By the way, do you know that the first flush toilet* in Mason County was installed in the Mason County Courthouse?

*"Yesterday in The Texas Hill Country" by Gilbert Jordan, Texas A&M University Press, College Station and London, 1979
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"My Texas Alphabet" is quite a personal summary of our hitherto life in Texas.