Rockne to celebrate 'herstory'

ROCKNE, Texas (KXAN) - Minnie Lehman Bartsch invented a new word. Asked what led the citizens of her hometown of Rockne, Texas, to get behind the creation of a thoroughly modern museum to chronicle the town’s history, she replied, “Germanacity!”

“It’s the urge to get things done,” she added.

The word reflects Rockne’s historical identity as a mid-19th century German-Catholic settlement and the tenacious fervor the town’s citizens have brought to every communal endeavor during the past 165 years.

Most recently, that communal endeavor created the Rockne Historical Association in 1990, followed by the construction of the museum in 2003. Nine years later, the building continues to draw visitors and donations.

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View the attached video, which is Jim Swift's 1988 story about the naming of the town.

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Neither would have been possible without Bartsch.

“I knew how to ask,” she said. “I’d ask as nicely as I can: 'Wouldn't you like to have your old pot or your old pictures in the museum?'

“And some of them would say, 'Well, yeah.'

“I said, 'It will be safe there and if you ever want it, you can come back and get it.' And nobody's ever come back and gotten anything.”

Bartsch first started collecting Rockne history as a young woman, when the parish priest asked her to help out around the office.

“He wasn't good on the typewriter or things like that,” she recalled.

Bartsch, though, had learned how to use the new-fangled contraption in high school and was ready to dive into parish office business. Immediately, she started saving things that would otherwise have been tossed out. Among them: clothing, letters, books, photographs and artifacts.

Two historic cabins from the area were restored and moved to the museum grounds.

All of this history includes the story of the naming of the town. In 1931, townsfolk decided it was time for a new name. The choices came down to two. They would name it after the famous Knute Rockne , head football coach at the country’s premiere Catholic university, Notre Dame. Or they would call it Kilmer, after Joyce Kilmer , the Irish-Catholic poet who wrote the well-known, “ Trees .”

The local priest at the time suggested the decision be put to a vote of the children of the town. The kids voted but the result was a tie. It seems all the boys voted for Rockne; all the girls for Kilmer.

The priest sent them home with orders to think and pray over the matter and come back the next day for another ballot.

Young Edith Goertz, changed her vote and Rockne, Texas, was born.

Over the decades, Bartsch stored that tale and the rest of the stuff she saved, first in her own house, and then in a room at the parish school. Finally, the Rockne Historical Association she helped found built the museum to hold it all.

“My instinct,” she said, “was that some day something will happen and I can show it. And it did!"

Saturday, the community will gather to erect a plaque at the site, a plaque honoring Bartsch for her foresight and her dedication. She’ll happily accept the honor, but she thinks lots of other people should get a plaque, as well.

“I think people wanted their history to be shown and that's why they brought all this stuff,” Bartsch said with a gesture over her shoulder to the huge room stuffed with historical displays.

“People were just amazed,” she added, “when they'd see it and they'd say, 'You know, I've got something at home I want you to put up,' or, 'I'll bring it next time I come,' and it's here!”

So the museum tells the story of a people who set down roots and flourished. They farmed; they voted; they celebrated their accomplishments and mourned their losses. They lived lives centered around their church. They still do.

They exude "Germanacity" and they’re happy when others stop by to soak a bit of it up.