Descendants: Annie Wrather Clarke, Hettie May Wrather Biggio, William Wrather Clarke, Katie Lee Clarke, Ray Anderson Crossly, and Willie Lee Biggio
William Baker Wrather was born in Virginia, January 18, 1827. His parents moved to Kentucky with the early Kentucky pioneers, and was reared in that state. Like all young men east of the Mississippi and particularly from the northern states, cheap lands, and the great western prairies drew Mr. Wrather to Texas about 1850. He located in Corpus Christi and later, in 1861, married Miss Mary Woessner, an attractive young German girl 19 years old.
When you think of the courage that it took for John M. Woessner to cross the ocean in a poor shipping vessel with his young wife and little daughter less than three years of age, landing at Galveston, Texas, in 1845, you can well appreciate the study type of German Mr. Woessner was.
The family came originally from Germany, where Mary Woessner was born July 20, 1842. The family moved from Galveston to Corpus Christi, in 1847, when little Mary was five years old. Mr. Wrather came three years later, and no doubt saw the little German grow from childhood to young womanhood. He wooed and won her in 1861, although almost twice her age. Wrather is loyal to his Southern training and inheritance, and enlisted at his country’s call in the Confederate Army. When the cause was lost for which he so valiantly fought, he returned to Corpus Christi and his homecoming was like that of all the other brave Southerners, who were on the side of the “Lost Cause,†his possessions were lost with the cause. His young wife was now the great helpmeet that God intended a wife to be. Wife means weaver, and so she set about to help her husband start the loom of life going again.
Mr. Wrather was a merchant first in Live Oak County, and then in Nueces County where he kept a general store. He was a captain in the war between the stat4es, and a member of the Episcopal Church with his family.
He died November 15, 1899, and was buried in the old cemetery.
Recollections of one of the granddaughters will give a picture of the cultural environment of the Wrather home.
Quote: “My grandmother’s garden was filled with old-fashioned flowers, also the parlor was furnished with an old-fashioned square piano, and several whatnots filled with ornaments, and fine furniture. I remember well the large oil painting of my great-grandmother. There was statues and bric-a-brac on the mantel over an old-fashioned fireplace, enlarged portraits of the family on the walls, and I remember flowers made of hair, feathers, beads, and fish scales. This was called art work. There was beautiful crochet made by my mother and aunts, and beautiful hand sewing by my grandmother. The most valuable asset of our forefathers environment was their enthusiasm, their lofty ideals. The Wrather home on Chaparral Street is one of the oldest homes in the city.†— Ref. Times, Feb. 26, 1936.
Source:
DeGarmo, Mrs. Frank. Pathfinders of Texas, 1836-1846. Austin: Press of Von Boeckmann-Jones, Co., 1951.
Transcription by: Rosa G. Gonzales