Eilenberger's and Collin Street Bakeries

Eilenberger's is very special to our family - and lots of folks in Palestine.  Mr. Eilenberger saved my mother-in-law's life when she was a little girl by giving away free bread during the Depression.  Her daddy worked occasionally for Mr. Eilenberger.  He was a house painter, but during World War II ALL paint went to the military, so he couldn't find work.  Mr. Eilenberger, as a business owner, COULD get paint, and he would hire Beth's daddy from time to time.  One day she was with her momma and brother going to meet her daddy after work and was so hungry that she fainted when they got to the bakery.  She always laughs and says it was the smell of that wonderful bread that caused her to faint.

The Eilenbergers gave free bread to lots of families - some of which are too proud to say they had to take it, and some, like John's momma, are proud to say they did.  That's just giving credit where credit's due if you ask me.


Mr. Eilenberger was from Leipzig, Germany and opened their family-owned bakery in Palestine in 1898.  (A German giving away bread in America during World War II.  Now THAT'S cool!)  It's the oldest bakery in the state of Texas still operating in its original location.  The tradition in Germany was to hold back the very, very best fruits and nuts from harvest and include them in Christmas fruit cakes.  When Mr. Eilenberger got to Texas he was able to best what was done in Germany by adding TEXAS pecans.  They were bigger and "sweeter, milder, crisper, and more delicious" than German pecans - in fact, more than any pecans anywhere.

Eilenberger's website says:  First, they’re scarce. Texas Pecan trees are so particular about soil and water, only 50% of the saplings survive transplanting. Then it takes up to ten years of careful cultivation before they begin to produce a harvestable crop.

They’re also good for you! Like many tree nuts, Texas Pecans can lower cholesterol. They’re high in vitamins, minerals and fiber, too.

They taste like no other Pecans you can buy. As legendary horticulturist Luther Burbank once declared to a Texas colleague: “your pecan is superior to our California walnut.” 

 -- eilenbergerbakery.com

Now I know why I have so much trouble getting new pecan trees to survive on our place!!

One of our favorite dessert recipes comes from Eilenberger's, we call it

Granny Beth's Cheese Squares (as in Philadelphia Cream Cheese)

Mix and press into the bottom of a 9 x 11 pan:
1 box yellow cake mix
1 egg
1 stick of butter

Blend and pour over that mixture:
1  8 oz. package of cream cheese
3  cups powdered sugar
2  eggs

Bake at 350 for 40-45 minutes.  Let cool completely.  Gain 40 pounds.



Collin Street Bakery in Corsicana, about an hour west of Palestine, opened in 1896.  They also feature fruit cakes.  They make good use of those Texas pecans, too!

 

Moravian Music

We walked back through the town of Old Salem, across the pedestrian overpass, and into the Visitor's Center.  It's a beautiful building with well-done displays, but somehow we weren't overly impressed on our earlier walk through.  I still can't figure out why.  But on our way back we go through glass doors in a wall of glass into a foyer hall of glass.  In the foyer there are some huge interpretive plaques discussing Moravian's love of music.  Inside the auditorium behind the second wall of glass we see a truly gorgeous pipe organ.

This organ was built in 1800 by David Tannenberg (1728-1804), the premiere 18th century American organ builder.  Tannenberg built fifty organs for Protestant and Catholic churches between 1765 and 1804, and fewer than ten survive.  This organ is the largest of those.  It has two manual keyboards, a pedal keyboard, 644 pipes, and eleven manual and two pedal stops.  Wowzer!


Hold it.  Wait just a minute.  Think about it.  Over 200 years ago Christian missionaries were sent to America.  In school we were taught about the Pilgrims of 1620 arriving on the Mayflower - but they were fleeing religious persecution, not coming as missionaries.  Okay, okay.  It was 150 years later, in 1770, that the Moravian's arrived and established Bethabara, but still...  The Moravians were well funded and strongly supported by their church back in Europe.  Their sole purpose was to be missionaries to Native Americans.  The work they did in farming and other endeavors was not to prosper themselves.  The money they earned went to support their mission work.  Individuals didn't own any part of the 98,985 acres; it was all owned by the church.  And looking at this organ, they weren't sent on a wing and a prayer - they were on solid financial ground, but still expected to become financially independent, successful businessmen on behalf of the church.  When I think of how missionaries are treated nowadays...  tsk, tsk, tsk.

This organ wasn't their only instrument.  Brass, string, woodwind, and other keyboard instruments were also there.  The Moravians were the first to bring trombones to colonial North America; Tannenberg and Johann Klemm were the first organ builders in the American colonies; John Frederick Peter of Salem was the first composer of chamber music in America and held one of the first American performances of Haydn's The Creation.

The Moravian's music was sacred and secular.  There was even a Moravian brass band that became famous with the Confederate 26th Regiment, North Carolina.  They wrote military marches and played at Confederate inaugurations.  Today, Moravian brass bands play at funerals and major church holiday services as well as staging concerts. 

And it all started because the Moravian's wanted to win people to Christ.  Cool.

The Tin Man

One of the last things we have to show you seems amazingly modern.  Think advertising.  If you have a business, you want to bring folks into your store, yes?  You put up a big sign, maybe with your name on it, maybe a "barber pole" if you're a hairdresser, maybe a wooden Indian holding a bunch of cigars if you're a tobacco shop.  Well, in old Salem there was a man who manufactured things, a metalsmith.  He decided he'd do a bit of advertising:

What amazes me is the magnitude of raw material this guy used to make his "sign."  This coffee pot is ten feet tall!  It's so big you could use it as a water tower and provide the whole town with a water supply!  I wonder if he knew it would still be around 200 years later ??

So, when we got home from this trip MY coffeepot (well, tea kettle, really, because John and I don't drink coffee - neither of us ever has...) my teapot quit working.  Had I known that was going to happen I would have bought a new one in Salem!  But alas, I had to just shop for one here in Danville.  For years I have simply used a Mr. Coffee and only run water through it.  Lately, however, more and more folks have started drinking tea and now there are choices.  I had seen one for about $30 dollars I liked, but I didn't like the $30 tag.  (Come on, guys!  All I want to do is boil water, for heaven's sake!)  My darling John spotted just the thing:

You fill 'er up with water, set her on the base, turn her on, and in a very few minutes - boiling hot water!  She shuts herself off, too!  So simple!  And the price tag?  Only $12.  My kinda deal.  Anything we need boiling water for (jello, hot chocolate, a cup of hot tea or to brew tea in a pitcher for John's favorite beverage, sweet iced tea) now we just use this magnificent creature.  I love it!  And it's so much easier to clean than a drip coffeemaker.  Bonus on top of bonus.  You can't beat that!

Single Sisters House

The construction of this place was delayed a year because the bricks being made for it were used to rebuild the Salem Tavern after it burned.  (SEE!  They DID make their own bricks!)  So, it was 1786 before the Single Sisters had a house.  I think it's interesting that "teens" didn't live at home after a certain age - the town had them move into other housing and begin to learn a trade or get higher education.  What's REALLY interesting is that the GIRLS got a chance at higher education, too.

  The Salem Female Academy was formally established in 1772.

Seriously.  1772.  That's four years before the American Revolution.  I think that's really amazingly cool.  Most folks back then didn't think women even had a brain!  My daughter-in-law was reading the blog posting about how house paint was made back then.  She wondered who ever thought to put those ingredients together.  My opinion?  a woman.  WE know what binds the ingredients of a cake together:  eggs.  WE know there's a chemical reaction between yeast and sugar that makes flour rise to make leavened bread.  WE know milk is much better than water for elasticity and permanence.  WE know what herbs are good remedies and what plants might kill you.  We CARE if something gets painted or not, and WE know that genius is the ability to avoid work by doing it right the first time!!!  (Besides, we had to think of SOMETHING to do with those burned-to-a-crisp baked potatoes.  Waste not, want not.)

The Single Brothers house is made of logs.  John had good pictures of it - but his new camera's Wizard somehow made it magically disappear  (some wizard...)  Erks me every time I think about that!  I know.  I know.  It's not the software, it's the dummy trying to use the software...  I'm still erked.

Old Salem Bakery

Well, John's new camera is AWESOME.  However, (there always seems to be a "however" ...)  We haven't mastered the PC software yet.  Somehow I managed to lose John's photos of Old Salem.  I DO have the ones I took with my cell phone.  This is all you get concerning the Old Salem bakery:

If you're on a PC you should be able to click on this photo and enlarge it enough to read it.  If you're on an iPhone it may be a little hard, so...

"Bread was so important to daily life in 1753 that a baker was among the first Moravians who journeyed from Pennsylvania to settle the Wachovia tract in North Carolina.  Salem's first baker moved from Bethabara to Salem in a772, and worked in the Single Brothers' Workshop.  The church, concerned about the single Sisters and girls visiting the single Brothers' workshop to purchase bread, decided to build a separate residence and bakery for a professional baker, and this structure was completed in 1800. 

In 1807, Christian Winkler arrived from Pennsylvania to operate the bakery.  He became Salem's most well known baker, with a career that spanned 30 years.  His descendants continued operating the bakery until 1926, when it left the family, but continued as a bakery.  Old Salem later acquired the property, restored the structure, and in 1968 reopened Winkler Bakery.  today Winkler Bakery is one of America's oldest bakeries still in operation."

(Maybe I'll tell you about Eilenberger's in Palestine, Texas or Collin Street Bakery in Corsicana, Texas soon...)

Now, as far as the oven in Winkler's Bakery:

"The domed bake oven, with its distinctive squirrel-tail flue on the outside, is typical of wood-fired bake ovens used in both public and private buildings in Salem.  Other examples can be seen at the Tavern, Single Brothers' Workshop, and the Vierling House.

"The oven is filled with stacks of wood, which are lit early in the morning.  When the wood burns down, the bricks lining the top of the oven are white hot (about 600 degrees F), and the embers are swept away.  While the oven cools to around 450 degrees, the bakers knead bread dough, mix sugarcake, and cut out cookies.

"They first bake bread while the oven is hottest, up to 96 loaves at one time.  After that, as the oven cools, sugarcakes go in, and sugar cookies are baked last.  The day does not end until the bakers have cleaned up from the day's work, and prepared the firewood and supplies for tomorrow's baking."

The good news is, John used to freak out about losing pictures.  This time he seemed so-o-o-o calm.  I was amazed.  I was even MORE amazed when he explained that the blog will help secure his memories.  (Wow!)

Shultz House in Old Salem

The Schultz House was built in 1819.  It's red clapboard is a contrast to most of the brick and plaster buildings.  When I think about it, a form to make bricks and finding the ingredients to make bricks is pretty easy.  Cutting tree trunks into usable clapboard is a whole 'nuther bucket of worms.  Maybe bringing bricks in from Philadelphia was an expensive proposition; lumber brought in took fewer wagons and beasts of burden (ox? horses?)  Or maybe by the time this house was built there was a saw mill in the area.  Then again, maybe the Schultz's just wanted to be able to change the color of their home from time to time...

As far as the red paint, according to Eric Sloane's "Do's and Don'ts of Yesteryear" that I picked up in one of the stores in Old Salem, what is known as early American "kitchen red" paint is a pretty simple recipe:  Do mix Indian red or powdered red earth with black from a lamp and bind it with sour milk.  Milk was a source of the earliest paints and its lasting quality founded the first plastic paints.  (Another who knew!)

The black paint on the shutters could be from another of Mr. Sloane's comments:  Do make black paint from an ancient recipe by baking potatoes (first slowly and then briskly) until they are completely burned or charred.  This black powder ground well in linseed oil produces a fine black paint.  (Ooookaaaay!)

The white trim?  "Do make New England glazed whitewash by taking two gallons of water, a pound and a half of rice and a pound of moist (?) sugar.  Let this mixture boil until the rice is dissolved, then thicken it to a proper consistency with finely powdered lime.  This whitewash gives a lasting satiny finish seen in the earliest farmhouse walls.  By adding milk or eggs the paint becomes plastic and more lasting."

Now, if you take these recipes and make your own paints and there's a problem, well, it's not my problem.  I'm just the messenger.  Dirt, lamp black, sour milk, charred potatos, rice, sugar, milk, eggs?  Who knew!