Finding Love in Comfort, Texas by Sable Hunter

 

One of the joys of living in the Texas Hill Country is the opportunity to have a wide choice of unique and marvelous locales for my books right at my fingertips and in front of my eyes. I have created a universe of characters and connected series set in and around Austin, from the Highland Lakes to the north to the winding banks of the Guadalupe to the south – and all in between. My current work-in-progress is entitled I SWEAR, starring a handsome hunk named Jonah Callan who is a mechanic. He does work for nearby Tebow Ranch in Kerrville, but he also maintains a shop in the small town of Comfort, Texas to be near his father who has early onset Alzheimer’s. There is a lot going on in this story besides romance, there is the internal struggle the main characters have with being caretakers, there is the threat of kidnapping and human trafficking, there’s even a poltergeist in the mix. Ha! Typical Sable Hunter fare – a mishmash of issues reminiscent of what we all go through. Our lives are seldom simple. 

When I originally chose Comfort as a backdrop for this man’s story, I knew very little about the town. My process is to visit the community as well as google the heck out of it to find historical information, interesting facts, mysteries – etc. I work as much of those interesting facts into my books as possible. Plus, those types of trivial tidbits just fascinate the heck out of me.

Some towns have very little recorded history or points of interest to brag about. Some have been blessed with an abundance. Comfort and the surrounding area fit into the second category. In 1854, a group of Germans settled at the site of an old Native American village. These pioneers were academics, all well-educated. In fact for the most part, they spoke Latin when they conversed. They were a particular sort known as Freethinkers, migrating to America for religious freedom. They weren’t all atheists, but they weren’t religious. Their desire was to live in a place where no one told them what to do, how to think, how to worship or if they had to worship at all. In fact, there was no churches built in the town until the 1900’s. Funerals and such were well-attended, but primarily secular.

As an interesting aside, the name of the town was chosen out of hope. They hoped to find comfort in this land of newfound freedom. Unfortunately, due to those Freethinkers being more accustomed to a more sedate, intellectual life, they found it difficult to adjust to the Texas frontier. Although hard working, they just weren’t used to building their own homes, planting their own crops, making their own way – etc. And they sure weren’t used to the mosquitoes and other disCOMFORTS. So, they kept the name Comfort as the name of their community more as a statement of irony than anything else. Of course, time would smooth things out and they did become comfortable in their new home.

All of this sounds fairly mundane, but the timing made it anything but. The Civil War came along and turned everything upside down – primarily because Texas sided with the Confederacy and these FREETHINKERS from Comfort firmly stood against slavery and secession. When required to vow their allegiance to the confederate cause, they refused. Ideally, people would have said live and let live, moving on to find someone else to help fight their battle, but war is seldom reasonable. Forced to choose, approximately sixty men and women attempted to flee to Mexico rather than fight against their newly adopted country. They were early conscientious objectors, I guess you might say. Their plan was to make their way to New Orleans, then return to the Hill Country when things settled down. Just before they made it over the Rio Grande, they were attacked by a Confederate force and 36 were killed. Below is the monument to those FREETHINKERS whose greatest wish was for humanity to be free.

Worthy of note is the fact that the flag standing in front of this Treue der Union monument in Comfort, TX,, is one of two flags in the US, the other being at Arlington Cemetery, which has been given the right to fly constantly at half-mast. 

Descendants of those FREETHINKERS are still around today – as is the town they built. In fact, Comfort is known as being one of the best conserved small towns in the country, over 100 original structures still stand. Residents pride themselves in preserving history. Many of the buildings are on the National Register of Historic Places. Here are a few examples of architecture from that period:

NOTE: The shopping is incredible, especially if you love neat, specialty shops!  

Much of the commerce of this early era depended on sheep, goats, grains, masonry, and lumber. In the 40’s and 50’s, the Hill Country was considered to be the international center of wool and mohair. A Comfort resident by the name of Adolf Stieler held the prestigious title of Angora Goat King of the World. I’m sure he was very proud.

Another notable business venture was an armadillo farm. The animals were raised to be harvested for their shells which went to produce basket, purses, and other various items. This establishment stayed active and profitable until the 1970’s.

 

This is a picture of the Apelt building which housed the offices for the armadillo farm. I have mixed feelings about this since the armadillos were killed for their shells. I’ve always enjoyed seeing them moseying around through the underbrush. I sure don’t see as many of them as I used to growing up. I don’t know if the highways got them, if pesticides played a role, or the Apelt’s were the reason for the diminished population.

One interesting thing I’ll share with you that I learned while writing another of my books called FORGET ME NEVER, it was the lowly armadillo who can be thanked for the cure for leprosy. For centuries, people thought leprosy was a judgment disease, much like our early thoughts on AIDS. People who came down with leprosy were ostracized, their identity taken away and a number assigned, their right to vote abolished, they couldn’t even live at home. If they bore children in the colony, those children were removed immediately. The only leper colony in North America was in a little town in Louisiana called Carville, on a bend in the Mississippi River. Scientists and doctors working at Carville Leprosarium finally discovered that the only other creature who can carry leprosy besides humans is the little armadillo. After experimentation and study, they discovered that leprosy is just a virus – a virus called Hansen’s Disease that can be easily controlled and even cured with medication. Now, that was probably more than you wanted to know – but that’s Sable for you.

Another oddity about Comfort is what I call the bat tower. All of the Hill Country, most especially Austin itself, is big on bats. We have festivals for them. One of our downtown bridges is home to the largest colony of Mexican freetail bats in the world. Instead of trying to destroy them, Austin celebrates them. Crowds gather at night to watch them take flight. They are protected and revered. In nearby Comfort, in 1918, a man named Albert Steves built a bat roost in order to use a large colony of the creatures to naturally control the mosquito population. At one time there were 16 of these structures in the US and Europe and now there are only two – this one in Comfort and one in the Florida Keys. It stands over 30 feet high. I’m not sure they worked very well. 

One thing I don’t have a picture of, but I wish I did (for some reason my camera wouldn’t work in the Comfort cemetery…woo-woo-I’m making a spooky noise) is a bunch of graves covered in seashells. I asked around as to why and I was told several things. None of them made a lot of sense. I know it wasn’t just a convenient covering for protection because the shells weren’t readily available. Comfort is located a couple of hours north of the Gulf of Mexico, so they would’ve had to be hauled in. Strangely, these are all old graves and many of them were those original FREETHINKERS. This fact makes the most common explanation that it was a Christian thing highly unlikely. Now, it could’ve been a hold-over custom from the old-country and it may also be some version of the African belief in ‘the sea shall take them back home’. After all that happened, I’m sure many of those folks wished they’d never left Germany. Another explanation offered was the old practice of putting a shell or a rock on a grave each time you visit – although most of these graves appear to be completely covered in shells and it seems they were that way from the beginning. I’ve researched and researched for some cryptic meaning, and I really can’t find one. If I solve this mystery, I’ll let you know.

Another wild thing about Comfort is that its home to a future cryogenics lab. You know, where they freeze your body until you can be brought back to life and cured of whatever ails you. Director and principal architect, Stephen Valentine, chose an 800-acre plot of land just outside Comfort to house a facility known as the Time-ship. This facility will hold up to 50000 bodies in suspended animation at -130 degrees, all hoping to be resurrected at a more opportune time. Time-ship’s design is said to be a cross between a spaceship and a castle. The town of Comfort was chosen for its safety, located far from locales famous for earthquakes, tornadoes, or snowstorms. There are also no military bases or nuclear power plants close by. Also, the entire complex will be off grid, using solar and wind energy to avoid crippling power outages. Reports also state they’ve consulted experts on ways for the project to survive a nuclear bomb. After all, it would be sad to beat death by freezing, then get blown up in a world war. Frankly, I’m going to just see where death takes me. As an avid ghosthunter, I sorta have an idea what to expect and I’m not sure where I’d be hovering if my body was made into a popsicle.

There is a whole lot more to be seen in Comfort, but my day was full. If I were staying the night, I’d book a room at the Holekamp Guest Haus. While the B*B is very attractive, what makes it special to me is that it was built in 1906 from a Sears Roebuck kit, the best they offered at $5000. The photo below is not the exact kit, but it’s an example of how they were sold. I thought this was so neat until I talked to my cousin, and she said we had one of those old Sears houses in Bronson. I can remember the house and it was very neat. Who knew? I expect this will be a thing of the future also and when Amazon starts selling kit houses, I may just order me one.

Anyway…Comfort is a fascinating place. I am having a blast writing about Jonah and Delaney in I SWEAR. And if you read the book, you’ll see some of these facts again, worked into the plot in whatever may I can figure out how to use them. This is my favorite part of writing, learning everything I can about the world I build for my characters.

Talk to you later,

Sable