Hattie Kolbe

I was only thirteen the last time I saw Hattie Kolbe alive, in my late 40s when I paid last respects to her as she lay in her coffin. The Kolbe family was part of my early growing up in Houston, Harris County, Texas. The Kolbes and the Oberprellers (Hattie’s family name) had been part of that post Civil War wave of German immigrants to Texas, the wave that brought my great-grandparents Benfer to Galveston and then to the Klein community of northwest Harris County. I really don’t know anything about Hattie’s family, only that she had at least one sister. They called her Fat Mama. Hattie’s son, John Jr. “Bubba” Kolbe, was one of Fat Mama’s favorites. Hattie and John Kolbe Sr. had two children, a daughter named Eula Mae and her younger brother. Bubba was six years older than I, so not a playmate. I stayed in his room when I visited the Kolbes periodically at their frame house on small acreage on Katy Road, acreage that was claimed for development decades ago and has been through as much metamorphosis as a caterpillar—only not so pretty.

I don’t remember why I went to visit the Kolbes, but I see their home in my mind’s eye. It was a typical 20s-30s clapboard, with a front porch that butted up against a bedroom to the left, front door leading into a living room, then dining room, then kitchen. To the left a hallway joined two bedrooms situated around the one bathroom. Bubba’s room must have been an afterthought prompted by his birth—maybe had been some kind of porch. Wood floors throughout the house, of course, linoleum on the kitchen floor and drainboard. A small entry porch at the back was cluttered with stacks of newspapers, bottles, other things I don’t remember, as was the kitchen drainboard. Hattie’s attitude, simply, “I don’t care”! She said it staccato: “I don’t kayuh”!

Hattie told my parents that I liked to sit in her lap and be rocked on the front porch. I kind of remember this, but I remember other things more clearly, like Eula Mae all dressed up and ready to go to her job at the bank, the smell of bacon and sausage being fried at breakfast, Mr. Kolbe telling me the story of the rat that ran up his sleeve when he was sitting at the wheel of the car in the garage. Or maybe it was his daddy’s sleeve. Anyway, it was in a year long before my birth year (1943), and the car was open enough that the rat found its way in. As I recall, the driver had put his hand to the floor, maybe to release the brake, and yeah, the rat. I cringe at the thought. Give me a snake any day.

I also remember the time that the Kolbes, our family the Hollises, my mother’s birth family the Fuchses, and our friends the Warnekes, went to Playland Park on Katy Road. The rides were for children—ponies tethered and moving in a circle, a miniature ferris wheel that Hattie and Kate Warneke got on, and then panicked with peals of laughter when they were stalled atop while new riders were getting on below.

My later memories of Hattie occurred in the early 50s, around the time that my middle sister and I were in junior high. The Kolbes had moved to land in very rural Fayette County, near the old, historic community of Rutersville. Their country Victorian house set in the most picturesque of settings, front porch facing the long drive from the county road, swept yard, Hackberry and Live Oak trees, a large two-story barn nearby. Hattie had gained a big house in the move, more room for clutter, including a kitchen cellar where she stored potatoes, onions, preserves. One time while visiting without my sister I had time on my hands and decided to rake up the variety of debris that Hattie had tossed out the backdoor, I’m remembering eggshells, but I know there was more. Hattie got angry for some reason. I guess my efforts to help out were interpreted as criticism of her “housekeeping” habits.

The Kolbes had a Black family that worked for them. They lived in a shack down the road. I don’t remember if it was on Kolbe land. One day Hattie discovered that some of her potatoes in the kitchen cellar had gone south—turned “ropey” was the colloquial term—and she instructed us (maybe that was my sister Sue and me) to take those potatoes down to the “niggers.” Painful and yet funny memory. Waste not, want not. German thriftiness, but not German tidiness, a stereotype not completely fulfilled. I can hear her say, “I don’t kayuh!” “Do you like pickles? I don’t kayuh!” She was the product of early 19th Texas southern attitudes, so for her to refer to their Black workers as “niggers” was expected. My Texas German grandmother, born in northwest Harris County, Texas in 1897 would have used, in fact did use, the same term. I love old things, Texas history, but for some reason not much was passed down through the generations—at least, not in our branch of the Benfer-Fuchs family. One time I asked my grandmother Lizzie Fuchs why we didn’t have any old stuff. She replied, “I don’t know, I guess we gave it all to the niggers.” This speaks volumes. Such memories embarrass me, yet warm my heart at the same time, because I know the intent was not malicious.

My memory of Hattie goes no farther than the summer when I helped Bubba and his daddy, along with the Black workers, make hay. We ate good food, drank iced tea, sat on the front porch during the worst heat of the day, slept in old iron beds in rooms with 12 foot ceilings, windows thrown open to catch the breeze. Maybe John Sr.’s sister Mickey—Aunt Mickey—who wore a maroon beanie with a pom-pom swinging from the back in winter time—might have been there. If not, she needed to be to complete the picture in my mind.

Hattie Kolbe was a short chunky lady, medium skin tones, fair colored hair, blue-green twinkling eyes. She was all about love and nurturing, even though she didn’t care so much about keeping a tidy kitchen, back porch, and dooryard. “Do you like my pickles? Oh, no you don’t! You don’t like my pickles. I don’t kayuh!” Rest in peace, dear Hattie.

Hattie Kolbe
Harold Hollis (December 8, 2005 – Normangee, Texas)