Everyday Music: Exploring Sounds and Cultures

The Original Oompah Band: German Dance Music, Tivydale

The Original Oompah Band German Dance Music, Tivydale By Labor Day the ground cover in the rolling Hill Country of Central Texas has turned a golden brown. Even the live oaks, juniper, and cedar trees have a tawny hue. The farmers tending their wheat, oat, and hay fields hope for rain after a more than a month of blistering heat and drought. When I arrive at the Texas Hills Sporting Range nestled in the small community of Tivydale about fifteen Texas Hills Sporting Range, site of the 51st Reunion of the Gillespie County Old Teamsters Association, Tivydale, Texas, September 1, 1986 German Dance Music, Tivydale \ 97 miles west of Fredericksburg, the fifty-first annual reunion of the Gillespie County Old Teamster’s Associationis already underway. The six-piece Original Oompah Band is playing “Westphalia Waltz.” About a half dozen couples are on the dance floor, a concrete slab under a long corrugated metal awning. Some sit and talk with their families and friends around picnic tables; others cluster together for dominoes. About 80 percent of the people there are speaking a distinct Texas dialect of German, reminiscing about their ancestors, who hauled freight to and from San Antonio with ox-drawn wagons or teams of horses and mules. Ninety-eight-year-old Hugo Usner, the oldest in attendance, says the spirit of the reunion is “Gemütlichkeit . . . a feeling that doesn’t translate well into English . It’s letting life go as it is and not being concerned about anything . . . let’s live for the moment a little bit.” Like his forbears who worked as teamsters during the period from the settling of Fredericksburg in 1846 to the coming of the railroad in 1913, Usner hauled cotton and grain but also lumber and dry goods. The first Old Teamsters Reunion was held July 21, 1905, and Usner is one of the few surviving freight drivers. About Usner, an eighty-one-year-old woman, who introduces herself as Mrs. Felix Heep, recalls, “A couple of years ago at the reunion here, they were trying Original Oompah Band (left to right: Larry Ottmers, Jim Hartmann, Chrissy Stuewe, and Dianne Pehl McManigle) at the 51st Reunion of the Gillespie County Old Teamsters Association, Tivydale, Texas, September 1, 1986 98 / Original Oompah Band to see who all was here that had ever driven horses, teamed the horses. So they said, ‘Everybody who has driven at least one horse, stand up.’ Well . . . threefourths of the people stood up. ‘Two horses,’ well, most stayed standing. When it got down to three horses, many had to sit down. They kept on going, and Hugo Usner just kept standing. They got up to twelve horses, and Hugo was still standing by himself, and they said, ‘Hugo, how many did you drive?’ and he said, ‘I drove eighteen horses at one time.’ Someone called out, ’Well, Hugo, you know you’re getting up in years. Are you sure you’re remembering it correctly?’ And Hugo answered, ‘Yeah, it was eighteen horses.’ And the other man asked, ‘You sure it wasn’t nine one way and nine back home?’ And Hugo insisted it was eighteen, so that’s the story.” Heep’s father came from Germany to Texas in the late 1800s and worked as a teamster, and her husband, while he wasn’t a freight driver per se, was a blacksmith who repaired their wagons. “I like everything about the reunion,” she says, “the open-pit barbecue, the German potato salad, the beans, the beer, the pies, all the table dressing and home-baked breads. Dancing starts at 2 p.m. There’s a short business meeting at three, but that never lasts past three-thirty 51st Reunion of the Gillespie County Old Teamsters Association, Tivydale, Texas, September 1, 1986 Albert Meier performing with the Original Oompah Band at the 51st Reunion of the Gillespie County Old Teamsters Association, Tivydale, Texas, September 1, 1986 100 / Original Oompah Band when the dancing starts up again. Couples like to dance the schottische, the Paul Jones, and the Herr Schmidt. The evening meal is from six to seven, and then, more dancing for about another hour. Everybody is having a good old-time get together . . . a lot of visiting, a lot of storytelling, a lot of enjoying.” T HE HEYDAY OF THE ORIGINAL OOMPAH BAND was from the...