Buttercup, Elsie, Black Beauty, Jaunita and the amply-uddered May West were among the cows Max and Minnie Tomerlin Voelcker raised from birth and milked twice a day, 365 days a year on their farm, part of which is now Phil Hardberger Park. More than a century old, the milking barn could accommodate 20 cows at a time. The 1,500-square-foot barn is key to understanding what life was like for the farmers who lived on the many dairies dotting the area of San Antonio known as Buttermilk Hill.
For this reason, volunteers from the Associated General Contractors’ Construction Leadership Forum are adopting the historic structure for their restoration project over the next two years. Rotted wood will be repaired, and windows will be repaired with guidance from Fisher Heck Architects and the City of San Antonio’s Historic Preservation Office to ensure the restoration forwards the building’s eligibility for the National Register of Historic Places.
Zac Harris, chair of the Construction Leadership Forum, said:
We want kids to walk in and feel like they’ve stepped back in time. We envision a working farm with live cows – a place where we can all connect with our cultural heritage and better understand San Antonio’s original settlements.
The group is hosting its first fundraiser (in the spirit of an old-fashioned barn-raising, but you won’t have to work before the eating and music get underway) for the restoration of the milking barn on Saturday, May 14, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on the farm in Hardberger Park. Music, an art sale and plenty of barbecue will be on hand, and the author of Last Farm Standing on Buttermilk Hill: Voelcker Roots Run Deep in Hardberger Park, will be present to sign books. For ticket information, contact Zac Harris at Joeris General Contractors, 210-494-1638, or Jeff Coyle at 210-826-8899.
As the project continues, I am sure they will need some vintage equipment from dairy operations as well. Any farmers out there with an antique Sears Economy Cream Separator?
The following weekend, the City of San Antonio will celebrate the grand opening of a whole new section of Phil Hardberger Park. The park opens at 8 a.m., with activities beginning at 10 a.m. and running through 7 p.m., on Saturday, May 21. Activities planned for the day include guided nature walks, kite-making and flying, children’s basketball competitions, parachute games and Frisbee tosses. A special feature is the addition of the “Makin’ Hay” exhibit created by sculptor Tom Otterness, previously on display at Espada Park. Parking will be available at the Alon Shopping Center across NW Military Highway from the new entrance to this western part of the park.
Update on May 10, 2011: Jeff Coyle’s post about “Makin’ Hay.”
Update on May 12, 2011: Saturday, May 14, event to include cow-patty bingo.
Update on May 17, 2011: During the event, Forrester Smith, a trustee of the Max and Minnie Tomerlin Voelcker Fund, delivered a $10,000 check from the fund to be used for the restoration of the diary barn.
So many attempts to find people who directly knew Max and Minnie Tomerlin Voelcker literally led to a deadend – the cemetery. Now that Last Farm Standing on Buttermilk Hill: Voelcker Roots Run Deep in Hardberger Park is in print, people are emerging with wonderful stories and memories – some from unexpected places. My hope is that people who read the book will return to this post and share the memories the book unleashes, add to the narrative and (oh my!) make corrections. I’ll share a few details gleaned from bits and pieces of conversations to start this process.
A neighbor of mine surfaced with a sleeve of Twilite Dairy bottle caps. Located out Blanco Road about a mile past Voelcker Lane, this dairy was operated by Josephine and Onis Lester Harrison (1910-1954), the son of Nancy Cordelia Tomerlin (1889-1962), Minnie Voelcker’s half-sister, and James Jot Harrison (1886-1956).
During the celebration for the book at The Twig yesterday, James Jot Harrison’s nephew, Jim Harrison, the son of Allie Gay Stanley (1902-2001)and Willie Willis Harrison (1898-1982), shared a family tree for the Harrisons (which would have been quite a time-saver).
While conducting research, I visited by telephone with Elizabeth Katherine Monosmith (1918-2010), the daughter of Katherine Josephine Speier (1891-1968) and Henry Dudley Voelcker (1889-1919), Max Voelcker’s brother. She was extremely tight-lipped with me, claiming she knew almost no family history. A son-in-law arrived at The Twig, however, saying his mother-in-law had great tales about the Voelcker boys’ escapades and was lucid up until the day she died. He pledged to share some here after reading the book.
The spouse of the man who built the old rock Coker church building appeared at the reception. Max and Minnie contributed $10 in the midst of the Depression toward the construction of the church. And Butch Gerfers, the third great-grandson of Joseph Coker (1800-1881), was letting everyone know about the dedication of a Texas State Historical Marker at Coker Cemetery on Saturday, November 27, at 10 a.m. That event should elicit many stories from descendants of the dairy farming families who considered themselves part of the Coker Settlement.
COKER CEMETERY
SOUTH CAROLINA NATIVE JOHN “JACK” COKER CAME TO TEXAS IN 1834 AND FOUGHT IN THE BATTLE OF SAN JACINTO. IN GRATITUDE FOR HIS SERVICE, COKER RECEIVED FROM THE REPUBLIC OF TEXAS A ONE-THIRD LEAGUE, WHICH TOTALLED 1,920 ACRES AND WAS SITUATED ALONG THE BANKS OF THE SALADO CREEK, APPROXIMATELY TEN MILES NORTH OF DOWNTOWN SAN ANTONIO. JOHN COKER SOON WROTE TO HIS BROTHERS JOSEPH AND JAMES TO COME TO TEXAS AND HELP HIM TO SETTLE HIS LAND. WHILE BOTH BROTHERS MADE THE TRIP TO TEXAS WITH THEIR EXTENDED FAMILIES, JAMES DECIDED TO SETTLE WITH HIS FAMILY IN CHEROKEE COUNTY, TEXAS; JOSEPH AND HIS FAMILY JOURNEYED ON TO THE LAND ON SALADO CREEK.
THE COKER FAMILY SETTLEMENT SLOWLY GREW, BUT TRAGEDY STRUCK IN 1857 WHEN LOUCIOUS MONROE COKER, SIX-YEAR-OLD SON OF JAMES HARRISON AND SARAH (GANN) COKER, DIED FROM A RATTLESNAKE BITE. LOUCIOUS WAS BURIED ON A HIGH KNOLL NEAR SALADO CREEK, AND A LARGE LIMESTONE HEADSTONE WAS PLACED AT THE SITE—THE STONE REMAINS AS THE MOST PROMINENT MEMORIAL IN THE CEMETERY. JOHN “JACK” COKER DIED IN 1861 AND WAS ALSO BURIED AT THE SITE.
IN 1873, JOSEPH COKER CONVEYED A 201-ACRE TRACT TO HIS TWO SONS, AND SIMULTANEOUSLY CONVEYED A THREE-ACRE PORTION TO TRUSTEES FOR USE AS “A NEIGHBORHOOD CHURCH, SCHOOL-HOUSE AND GRAVE-YARD.” A SCHOOLHOUSE WAS SOON BUILT AND A METHODIST CONGREGATION WAS ESTABLISHED IN 1885. ALTHOUGH THE SCHOOL HAS RELOCATED, THE CHURCH REMAINS ADJACENT TO THE CEMETERY. THE COKER CEMETERY ASSOCIATION INCORPORATED IN 1967 IN ORDER TO CARE FOR THE SITE, AND TODAY, COKER CEMETERY SERVES AS A REMINDER OF AN EARLY TEXAS PIONEERING FAMILY.
HISTORIC TEXAS CEMETERY – 2009
The title of the book even inspired a board member of Hardberger Park Conservancy, Doug McMurry, to pick up his guitar and write a song. I talked him into sharing an excerpt:
Last Farm in Town (Phil Hardberger Park)
by Doug McMurry
Here’s to Minnie and Max.
I think you’ll agree
What they left behind
Is incredible to find.
It’s the last farm in town.
Walking through the park,
It’s a different place now.
I think you will see
This was meant to be.
It’s the last farm in town.
History is not stagnant; it’s open to interpretation. I hope others will continue to build upon this story by taking advantage of the interactive dialogue capabilities afforded by blogs and sharing their collective memories about Max and Minnie and life on Buttermilk Hill.
Update on November 23: The Max and Minnie Tomerlin Voelcker Fund has donated copies of Last Farm Standing on Buttermilk Hill to the Coker Cemetery Association to use for fundraising purposes during the marker ceremonies on Saturday.
Update on November 29:
Update on March 6, 2011:
Royce Jones recalled: “I was 6 years old when I asked my father how to milk. And he showed me. To my chagrin, he then assigned a cow or two to me to milk every day before I went to school.”
The above story is among many V. Royce Jones (1917-2011), the second great-grandson of Joseph Coker (1800-1881), so generously shared with me two years ago to help me understand what life was like for those families growing up on dairy farms on “Buttermilk Hill.” I read in the Express-News this morning that the 93 year-old will be joining his ancestors and former neighbors resting in the Coker Cemetery on March 9. I’m so thankful for the conversations I was privileged to have with him.
Update on March 12, 2011:
Willie Mae Tomerlin remembered Minnie’s mother, “Grandma Tomerlin, cooked on a wood stove ‘til the day she died (1951). She made the best biscuits on that wood stove.”
Willie Mae Tomerlin, who also granted me an interview, joined Royce Jones at the Coker Cemetery the following day. The 90-year-old was the widow of Minnie’s nephew Aubrey Tomerlin.
Update on April 22, 2011: A few weeks ago, Butch Gerfers, president of the Coker Cemetery Association, invited me to sign books during the association’s annual meeting. Members of families mentioned in Last Farm Standing - Tomasinis, Cokers, Isoms, Autrys and more - introduced themselves to me and shared stories I was unable to write down while signing books. Mitchell G. Tomasini, Jr., Max Voelcker’s first cousin once removed, said he was quite surprised by the photograph of himself in the book. While he did not remember the photo from the San Antonio Light, he remembered the day quite clearly.
The 1938 image shows him standing next to a wrecked plane in his grandparents’ cornfield. Mitchell said the pilot had been storing the plane on the farm and had taken it up twice that day. While the pilot was teaching a student to fly, Mitchell waited with great excitement down below. The pilot had promised take the 11-year old up next for what would have been the first airplane ride in his life.
But Mitchell’s first flight was postponed. The plane crashed into the rows of tall corn, killing both student and pilot.
The donkey Minnie was astride in 1942 was Jim Harrison's Seabiscuit.
Update on April 23, 2011:
Jim Harrison, whose family lived near Blanco and West Avenue, grew up calling Max and Minnie by the same names his first cousin and Minnie’s half-nephew, Onis Harrison, did – Uncle Max and Sister. Jim and his mother “would take my buggy and donkey and ride down Blanco Road to see Uncle Max and Sister. My donkey was named Seabiscuit.” Naming a donkey for the legendary racehorse of 1938 fame seems wishful thinking; it probably did little to inspire him to move at a rapid pace.
from Last Farm Standing on Buttermilk Hill
Can’t believe I had forgotten to share Jim Harrison’s excitement over discovering a photo of his donkey Seabiscuit, unidentified as such, in the book.
Note added on July 23, 2011: The Coker Cemetery Association has copies of the available for sale through its website.
The Trustees of the Max and Minnie Tomerlin Voelcker Fund are hosting a celebration of the publication of The Last Farm Standing on Buttermilk Hill: Voelcker Roots Run Deep in Hardberger Park from 5 to 7 p.m. on Tuesday, November 16, at The Twig Book Shop, 200 East Grayson at Pearl Brewery. Music Max and Minnie would have loved will be provided by the Lone Star Swingbillies. During the event, 60 percent of any sales of the book will benefit the Phil Hardberger Park Conservancy.
Char Miller, W.M. Keck Professor of Environmental Analysis at Pomona College of Claremont, California, and author of Deep in the Heart of San Antonio: Land and Life in South Texas, wrote: “Few San Antonians remember Buttermilk Hill, but Gayle Spencer has recovered its significance through an intimate portrait of the dairy-farm families who once inhabited the rolling North Side terrain. Only the Voelckers held out against encroaching sprawl, and the result is Hardberger Park, a verdant vestige of the city’s bucolic past.”
After the Texas Revolution, land grants from the Republic of Texas attracted new settlers to the outskirts of San Antonio. The grandparents of Max and Minnie Tomerlin Voelcker were among those drawn by “gold” to a community known as the Coker Settlement, just north of today’s Loop 410 but, at the time, a full day’s round-trip by wagon on bumpy dirt roads. Unlike that of California, their gold was, first, the opportunity to produce golden butter and, later, the value of the land itself.
By the late 1800s, so many dairies dotted the countryside that the area became known as Buttermilk Hill. Last Farm Standing on Buttermilk Hill traces the early migration to this community and the daily challenges faced by those who farmed the land. Dairy farming involved rising before dawn to churn milk drawn the night before into butter, answering the twice-daily calls from cows in need of milking and driving long distances to deliver cream and butter to city-dwellers. Life was not easy, and nature did not always cooperate.
Max and Minnie both were born on Buttermilk Hill and learned to milk cows almost as soon as they could walk. With farming in their blood, they naturally married from within the Coker settlement.
As dairy farming became big business in Texas, small dairies no longer could compete. But by then, the land itself was so valuable protracted court battles embroiled the Voelckers and their siblings, leaving permanent scars. San Antonio swallowed up one farm after another, until the Voelcker farm, part of which is Phil Hardberger Park, was the last one standing on Buttermilk Hill.
Update on November 9: Unused, there are no remnants of cream glopped onto the back of this wonderful milk bottle cap Carolene dropped by my house. She says (see her comment below) the Twilite Dairy was located out Blanco Road about a mile past Voelcker Lane. That dairy on Buttermilk Hill, which no longer stands, had been owned by Josephine and Onis Lester Harrison (1910-1954), the son of Nancy Cordelia Tomerlin Harrison (1889-1962), Minnie Voelcker’s half-sister.
Update on November 14: Ed Conroy’s review in the Express-News is better written than the book itself.
After an aquifer-filling 24 hours, the clouds parted just in time for this morning’s opening ceremonies for Phil Hardberger Park.
Former Mayor Hardberger does not take the responsibility of having the 300-acre park named in his honor lightly. Since leaving office, he has assumed the presidency of the Phil Hardberger Park Conservancy; along with his wife Linda, donated $100,000 from their private foundation; found the conservancy a home in his former office space in the Milam Building; and, perhaps most importantly for the future of the park, installed the powerhouse behind several former mayors – Betty Sutherland – as the conservancy’s executive director.
Former Mayor Howard Peak and Mayor Julian Castro
Father David Garcia and Linda Hardberger
Anne “Parky” Alexander
Marcie Ince and Parky
Former Mayor Howard Peak, Mayor Julian Castro and Former Mayor Phil Hardberger
Pug Pining for Dogpark
Father David and Banks Smith
Bonnie Conner
Where’s the dogpark?
The opening provided a break from editing the edits in a book about the farmers, Max and Minnie Voelcker, who lived on the land now Hardberger Park. Editor Lynnell Burkett and I agree about the placement of the oft-cursed comma (refer to earlier ‘ode’) surprisingly more frequently than that of the devilish colon.
During this morning’s ceremonies, the former mayor said the parkland will endure for centuries to come, long after those who had anything to do with it are forgotten. Already, Voelcker is far from being a household name, even for those living near the park.
Although the Voelckers ran cattle on their land once dairy-farming became unprofitable for small operators; they always considered themselves farmers. The stories of their farm and all the dairies that flourished in this part of San Antonio once known as Buttermilk Hill are endangered. A May 14 editorial in the San Antonio Express-News provided evidence some of the few who know the Voelcker name now term the land’s historical usage as “ranch.”
While Max and Minnie were simple farmers, their legacy stands in the towering oak trees they carefully preserved and the foundation they endowed to support medical research of benefit to many, The Max and Minnie Tomerlin Voelcker Fund. But, having spent months and months with their papers and photos encircling my desk, I want others to know these stubborn farmers who so tenaciously clung to their land despite the immense pressures of urbanization.
So back to the edits. Let’s get The Last Farm Standing on Buttermilk Hill on the press, before everyone forgets that “on this farm there was a cow.”
