When Alice Welder was a little girl visiting family in Fredericksburg, Texas, she would look out the car window and widen her eyes to take in the sight of old German pioneer houses. One homesite that sat along a cypress-lined creek enchanted her the most—even before she heard the family stories about the place. “That spot has always been magical,” Welder says, “and I think even then I dreamed it would be part of my life forever.”
In the early 1900s, Welder’s own relative Albert Keidelknown as “Schatzie,” protected and restored pioneer artifacts such as pine tables and even entire houses. So Welder isn’t exaggerating when she says, “Loving old buildings is ingrained in my soul.”