Easter Fires in the Texas Hill Country

Easter Fire on Cross Mountain

The Easter Fires Pageant

As a more recent Fredericksburg resident, one of the German traditions that I most miss being able to attend is the Easter Fire Pageants. In addition to the fires that were lit at the Fairgrounds, dozens of other fires were lit along the hills in the German tradition of welcoming Spring.

The following excerpt is taken from the first volume of Die Friedrichsburger Manuskripte (The Fredericksburg Manuscripts) "Hin nach Amerika! (Off to America!)".

"RUDOLPH ASEWAYNAH FISCHER: GERMAN-TEXAN COMANCHE WARRIOR

(The author relates this providential meeting with Dr. Guenther Fischer at the Fredericksburg, Texas Easter Fires Pageant in 1994.)

The summerlike warmth of the clear, sunny day had suddenly vanished in Friedrichsburg. The sun had set. At the same time the temperature up in the Texas Panhandle was freezing. It was quickly becoming chilly, almost cold, this Saturday Easter Eve in the Central Texas German Hills.

The wary women of Fredericksburg to this day, from decades of experience, always admonish, "Don't put out the new plants and flowers until Easter has come and is well gone!" And, "If you go to the Easter Fires Pageant, take a blanket to wrap around you!"

Three thousand people from near and far were crowding into the Racetrack bleachers at the Gillespie County Fairgrounds enjoying the Volksmusik, the traditional German music, played by the Easter Bunny Band as prologue to the annual Easter Fires Pageant.

There was an empty reserved seat next to me. I wondered who would be occupying it; and I also thought that it would be a shame if the seat wouldn't be used. The pageant is always sold out months in advance.

As the lights dimmed and the cast of half a thousand local volunteers began enacting the stories of the founding and the traditions of Friedrichsburg, a distinguished young man came to claim the seat.

Someone had returned his or her ticket. Dr. Guenther Fischer had just come to Friedrichsburg and was eager to see the pageant. He was especially interested in the parts telling about and portraying the Indians and the German- Comanche Peace Treaty. He happened to be next in line at the ticket counter. He got the ticket.

Never have I seen anyone so enraptured as he watched the unfolding dramatizations of the Spanish Franciscans Missionaries, the Comanche campgrounds and campfire, the German wagon train filled with pioneer settlers, the Peace Treaty with the Indians, and the life and the yesteryear times of German Friedrichsburg.

Then he sensed being home in Germany when the colorful fireworks were set off, the signal for the bonfires on the surrounding hills to be set ablaze. In Germany, too, the Easter Fires signal the death of Winter and the coming of new life and productiveness.

As in Germany, the lighting of the Easter fire in the local Catholic Church during the Saturday Easter Vigil, begins the symbolization of resurrection from death, victory over sin, and the grace of still another year of opportunity for growth in mind, spirit, and body. In Friedrichsburg, Easter, even more mystically than Christmas, seems to have the edge as the most special time of the year.

During the intermission Guenther Fischer and I got down to meeting one another. Dr. Fischer explained that he was an engineer in the very specialized field of material science at the University of Stuttgart, Germany. Then came the bombshell. He had just come from the Ft. Sill Indian Reservation in Oklahoma where for the first time he was searching for Fischer relatives of both German and Indian blood. Now he was in the Texas Hill Country to hear the German Texan side of the story.

He came to Fredricksburg to discover what had happened to the son of Gottlieb Theophil Fischer who was kidnapped by the Indians."

But that is another story.