The Pioneer Women of Bandera, Texas: Inspiration for The Wretched and Undone by J. E. Weiner
Bandera, Texas, is known as the “Cowboy Capital of the World,” and the town’s history is filled with tales (and a few yarns) about cattle ranchers, Comanche raiders, dogged men of the cloth, dedicated lawmen, and more than a few bandits. But just as many cowgirls ventured beyond their traditional domestic roles and challenged gender norms, often as a matter of sheer survival on the frontier, to help forge the American West. Their narratives are out there if you know where to look. They are in those spaces where most of the stories of pioneer women and the disenfranchised more broadly have lingered for centuries: among oral histories passed down from generation to generation and memoirs scribbled by candlelight.
J. Marvin Hunter and his wife, Susie Rogers, with their young family.
The first primary source that sparked my imagination at the outset of my background research for The Wretched and Undone, was J. Marvin Hunter’s 1922 collection of oral histories titled Pioneer History of Bandera County. The self-published volume contains 107 accounts of the early days of Bandera based largely on personal interviews conducted with the surviving members of the founding families. Hunter was compelled to share these stories as “the rising generation ought to know something of the cost of the blessings we today enjoy” (Hunter, p. i). Of those 107 accounts, only 8 were from the founding mothers of Bandera, with only 22 of the 287 pages devoted to their reports. To be fair, Hunter led with a short tribute, “Our Pioneer Women,” in which he celebrated “our gentle sisters, the heroines of the pioneer; our first, last and faithfullest friend,” and acknowledged that “her gifts and fame have placed her laurels chiefly on masculine brows” (Hunter, p. ii). Regardless, each line on every page that did tell the story of the women of Bandera left a deep and lasting imprint in my mind’s eye and inspired many of my novel’s characters.
Mrs. Constantina Adamietz, a.k.a. “Mother Adamietz,”
(J. Marvin Hunter, Pioneer History of Bandera County, 1922, p. 136)
Two interviews, in particular, stand out. The first and most substantial is with Mrs. Constantina Adamietz, known to all in town as “Mother Adamietz,” who arrived in Bandera with the original Polish settlers in 1855 at the tender age of nine. Her parents were poor peasants searching for a better life in “the land of the free.” She describes the nine-week journey across the Atlantic as one where “every day was just alike, and at night a stillness as of death settled about us,” followed by a grueling trip overland by oxcart to a place that “was a beautiful country, but it was a wilderness” (Hunter, p. 138-39). She and her fellow arrivals immediately realized they “had come as strangers to a strange land,” often wishing they “were back in Poland where no dangers lurked, but as [they] were without means with which to leave [they] were compelled to remain [there] and ‘grow up with the country’” (Hunter, p. 140-141). Adamietz and her fellow immigrants set about to make life “as enjoyable and happy as our circumstances would permit” (Hunter, p. 140).
Poverty, of course, was a strong motivator, and the “women helped to grub land, working in the fields, and performed any labor they could to help make a living” (Hunter p. 140), all the while bearing child after child, and for Mother Adamietz, eleven children in all. The women were also called upon to render all forms of medical care. “We had no drugs or medicines, and when overtaken by illness, homeopathic remedies were resorted to. Every housewife knew how to ‘doctor’ her children and how to set and bandage fractured limbs, make poultices, dress wounds, and relieve suffering” (Hunter, p. 143). Mother Adamietz also recounts the terror of war that haunted her for a lifetime. “When the Civil War came on, we remained aloof from partisanship…Men were hung for their sentiments, and many disappeared to never be heard of again. These were terrible times” (Hunter, p. 144).
Mrs. Martha “Mattie” Jones, a.k.a. “Grandma Jones,” (photo courtesy of Bill Pannebaker, Secretary, Frontier Times Museum Board of Trustees)
The second is the story of Mrs. Martha “Mattie” Jones, also known as “Grandma Jones.” Jones recounts a desolate and often lonely life on the frontier. “This was a sparsely settled region when we came here in 1865. There were only a few girls of my age, and they lived so far apart we were seldom thrown together” (Hunter, p. 280). She also spoke of the constant fear of raids by the Comanche which kept her “in a constant state of dread all of the time…Many nights I spent in fear and trembling, thinking of my helpless condition if [they] should come” (Hunter, p. 282). Grandma Jones recalled the night she heard raiders yelling in the hills surrounding her small homestead and awoke to find a pair of moccasins placed outside the back door. A warning she and her family heeded (Hunter, p. 281).
But times of levity were not wholly absent. Grandma Jones also recalled school picnics, dances, and weddings “where a big supper awaited us, and we danced until sunrise the next morning” (Hunter, p. 281). And on July 4, 1866, Jones’s closest girlfriends gathered for a grand ball at the Duffy Hotel in town. “These girls remained with me a week, and a dance was given in their honor every night they were here” (Hunter, p. 281). Life in the border regions was not without its pleasant distractions.
The six remaining stories contained in Hunter’s volume were simple accounts of dates of birth, death, and, more often than not, the death of spouses, often leaving the women alone on the frontier. Even so, their strength and grit can be discerned among the few lines of text comprising their accounts. Mrs. Amelia Schmidke was widowed at the age of 39 and left with two children, a ragged ranch, and staggering debt by her husband Charles. Amelia persevered, saved her home, and paid off the debts quickly, to the amazement of the men in town. Mrs. Mary Jane Walker, 88 years old at the time of her interview, was married at 23 and, within a little over ten years, had given birth to nine children, while Mrs. Samantha Mayfield bore twelve children in her lifetime, losing four along the way. And Mrs. Sarah Kathrine Stanard arrived in Bandera in 1871 with her husband, Harvey. Mrs. Stanard, who lost her own parents as a child, took in countless orphans from across the county and raised them among her own seven children.
March is Women’s History Month, commemorating women’s contributions to events in history and contemporary society. The pioneer women of Bandera County, Texas, most certainly warrant such recognition. The characters of Agnieszka, Liza, and Anna Anderwald in The Wretched and Undone are inspired by these and other compelling and brave founding mothers, and are, in many ways, an homage to the intrepid souls who, in their own quiet and often unrecognized ways, helped build the American frontier.
About the Author
J. E. Weiner is a writer and novelist based in Northern California. Her debut novel, The Wretched and Undone, a searing Southern Gothic tale set in the Texas Hill Country and inspired by real people and actual events, is forthcoming from History Through Fiction on March 18, 2025. The book manuscript was named a Killer Nashville Top Pick for 2024 and a Claymore Award Finalist for Best Southern Gothic. Weiner’s previous work has appeared in the literary journals Madcap Review, Five Minutes, HerStry, and Chicago Story Press, as well as the recent grit lit anthology Red-Headed Writing (Cowboy Jamboree Press, 2024). Weiner is a founding member of the Pacific Coast Writers Collective, and while living and writing in blissful exile on the West Coast, her heart remains bound to her childhood home, the Great State of Texas.
A searing Southern Gothic saga unfolds in the Texas Hill Country, where history’s silenced voices rise amidst an astonishing tale.
Polish immigrants Marcin and Agnieszka Anderwald arrive in Bandera, Texas, seeking a new beginning, but their dreams turn into nightmares when Marcin angers a vengeful spirit. The Anderwalds and their diverse group of immigrant outcasts, camel wranglers, and a troubled songstress face battles against evil across generations. Will they escape their torment or remain trapped? "The Wretched and Undone" is a thrilling, genre-bending tale with vivid characters, earning recognition as a Killer Nashville Top Pick for 2024 and a Claymore Award Finalist for Best Southern Gothic.
