Originally Posted by joemikeb
Originally Posted by Ira L
When my wife's grandfather came over on the boat as a little boy with his parents, they landed in Corsicana, Texas. Who knows why? But every year around this time he would send out to his children and grandchildren a fruitcake from Corsicana to commemorate that event. I miss the fruitcakes. And oh yes, grandpa too. He and his parents soon caught a train to New York, which derailed on the way there resulting in an eventual monetary compensation to the passengers which allowed the family to begin another enterprise. But that is a story for another post. smirk
I may know why your wife's grandfather landed in Corsicana, Texas. Beginning while Texas was still a region of Mexico until several years after the American Civil War, Texas was land rich and money poor. Entrepreneurs such as Moses Austin and his son Stephen F. Austin would get large land grants in Texas hoping to make their fortunes by parceling them out and selling piecemeal to land hungry farmers from economically depressed regions of the United States and Europe. These promotors would sell what sounded like a huge amount of land, often a section or 640 acres, to a farmer in the old world and include passage to Texas in the price. As a result, there are towns all over the state where the bulk of the original population came from countries like Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, or Corsica (thus the city of Corsicana). When I was in high school during the early 1950s there were several towns where the lingua franca was more German, or Czechoslovakian than English or Spanish. One such town, Windthorst, is a German Catholic community where some of the residents spoke only German in the 50s. The mayor was the lone protestant in town and elected because he was the only person not related by blood or marriage to at least half of the population so he din't get caught up in family feuds. So, the odds are, your wife's grandfather got passage to Corsicana through some sort of a land promotion in his home country (perhaps Corsica?).

Interesting background history I was not aware of. The grandfather's family never intended to stay in Texas; they were always New York bound, where they had other family. I suspect that they left Europe while the gettin' was good, and this destination may have been their only option at the time.


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