Letters to Oma A Young German Girl's Account of Her First Year in Texas, 1847 By Marj Gurasich When fifteen-year-old Christina Eudora Von Scholl learns that her family will leave their German homeland to seek freedom in Texas, her greatest sorrow is leaving behind her beloved grandmother. And so, in a series of letters, she takes "Oma" on this great adventure with her family . . . and takes us as readers. Sometimes the letters are dark with discouragement, for the Von Scholls find, as did many German-Texas families, that the Society for the Protection of German Emigrants, known as the...

"A house divided against itself cannot stand."--A. Lincoln
Continuing the saga told in "Letters to ""Oma" of the von Scholls, a German family immigrating to Texas in 1847, "A House Divided" tells the story of the effect of the Civil War on German Texans who frowned on slavery and, like Sam Houston, thought the Union must be preserved at all costs.
The von Scholl family is split apart when two brothers choose different sides--Will joining the Confederacy and Fred refusing to fight. When Fred is killed by renegade southerners and Will captured by Union soldiers, sixteen-year-old...