The Charles Theodore Zapp Mausoleum is constructed of large pink granite block. It is located in Sect. E-2, Lot 8.5. The door is wood with glass panes and there is a stained glass window on each side of the building. The interior has individual vaults with white marble coverings.
The following information is from various pages on the Glenwood Cemetery Website (
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Charles Theodore Zapp
Born: Jan. 11, 1859
Died: July 29, 1931 (aged 72)
Wife
Mary Katherine Heinsohn Zapp
Born: Oct. 1, 1862
Died: June 18, 1943 (aged 80)
Daughter
Ottilie Caroline Sophie Zapp
Born: March 2, 1882
Died Sept. 8, 1948 (aged 66)
Son
Charles Walter Zapp
Born Aug. 7, 1885
Died Sept. 4, 1955 (aged 70)
Wife of Charles Walter
Marie Smith Zapp
Born: Jan. 7, 1894
Died: Feb. 29, 1920 (aged 26)
Son of Charles Walter and Marie Smith
Charles Walter Zapp, Jr
Born Feb 28 1920
Died Feb. 28, 1920
Son
Theodore Charles Zapp
Born: Feb 13, 1888
Died: June 3, 1953 (aged 65)
Son
Werner Gerhardt Lytt Zapp
Born Feb. 11, 1889
Died Oct. 21, 1980 (aged 91)
Wife of Werner
Glennie Althea Carter Zapp
Born: May 16, 1895
Died March 28, 1977 (aged 81)
Daughter
Bernetta Zapp Pflughaupt
Born: July 22, 1891
Died: July 30, 1961 (aged 70)
Husband of Bernetta Zapp
Herbert Louis Pflughaupt
Born Oct. 2, 1885
Died Nov. 16, 1958 (aged 73)
Daughter
Letitia Adelaide Zapp Morgan
Born: Sept. 21, 1898
Died: May 15, 1985 (aged 86)
First Husband of Letitia Adelaide
Ebert Swain Slataper
Born Jan. 18, 1892
Died Dec. 6 Dec 1944 (aged 52)
Son of Letitia Adelaide and Ebert Swain
Charles Ted Slataper
Born Aug. 19, 1923
Died Oct. 10, 2005 (aged 82)
Second Husband of Letitia Adelaide
Harry Opheus Morgan
Born Feb. 2, 1891
Died Oct. 23, 1963 (aged 72)
From More of Willow Springs: Fayette County History
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The Willow Springs community lies west of Cummins Creek in the James Miles and John Andrews Leagues in the southeastern corner of Fayette County. David and Sarah Davis Breeding who came from Kentucky were early settlers in the area. The first known school session in the county occurred on the Breeding’s land in 1834, taught by a Mr. Rutland. McGinnis was another early family in the area.
With the first permanent German settlement in Texas only a few miles to the east at Industry, it’s no surprise that immigrants also established farms in the Willow Springs area. The Albrechts, Hennigers, Krebs, Muellers, Muenzlers, Pagels, Sauers, Schulzes, Scharnbergs, and Weidemanns were some of the earliest immigrants to locate there. In the late 1850s and 1860s, the term “Briten” Settlement—and other similar spellings that appear to be variations on the Breeding name—was used by the German-speaking Lutheran Pastor at nearby Frelsburg, Rev. J. C. Roehm, to describe the birthplace of local children.
In 1870 Rev. Roehm used the term “Pagel settlement” to describe the community. The Pagels had immigrated in 1850 and farmed just west of Cummins Creek. In 1866, after his father and most of his siblings had moved on to Lavaca County, the oldest son, F. Wilhelm Pagel, bought additional property at what is now the intersection of State Hwy 159 and FM 954. He dug a root cellar and built a house over it with thick rock walls covered with stucco. Pagel ran a general merchandise store on his property and the local community became known as Rock House, named after Pagel’s home, when he became its first postmaster on October 12, 1871. The name Rock House was still in use long after Wilhelm Pagel died in 1873 and his wife relinquished the post office, which was officially moved a few miles east into Austin county where the new postmaster, Ernst Witte, lived.
In 1880 Charles T. Zapp purchased one and a half acres to build a house and store across the road from the Pagels at the location of today’s Minssen Store. The following year he established a post office in the store, and the community was known for a time as Zapp or Zapp Post Office. Charles F. Garlin bought the store and served as the Zapp postmaster from 1892 until 1902, before selling it back to C. T. Zapp, who ran the post office again until it was discontinued in 1906.
Since the 1870s the community’s school located near the Willow Springs branch was called the Willow Springs School. Throughout all the post office changes the community was alternatively known as Willow Springs, the name it bears today.
Footprints of Fayette (
visit link) article by Rox Ann Johnson:
Catastrophic Hail at Willow Springs
The Willow Springs community, then known as Zapp, suffered a catastrophic hailstorm at about four o'clock in the afternoon of May 31, 1907. Here is a first person account of it, written by Charlie T. Zapp and published in the June 15, 1907 Weimar Mercury:
Hail in Fayette County.
The following letter was received here yesterday by Mr. Robert Zapp from his cousin:
Zapp, Fayette Co., Tex., June 2.
We are nearly over our big fright of Friday evening. I have heard of hailstorms, but nothing like this one – hail from the size of hen eggs up to the size of your fist. It broke 123 window panes and window sash for us; cracked and broke the blinds and split all the shingles on the north and west side of the houses, unroofing some; knocked some off their foundation, and holes in some roofs as big as a hat, and water just poured into the broken windows in torrents. Biggest rain we ever heard of, afterward doing much damage (you know our store is two-story).
Storm twisted off our new windmill, destroyed fences, uprooted trees; not one leaf left on many large trees, nor on corn and cotton, vegetation, etc. Even weeds were all killed by hail in fields and pastures, and not thirty days’ feed left of neither hay nor corn of 1906 crop, and price raised at once at Fayetteville to $1 per bushel for corn. Two of our horses and many others ran into the barbed wire fences through fright and were butchered up considerably. I expect one of our nice blacks will die. Hundred of chickens, rabbits, snakes and thousands of birds were killed by the hail, which was found (the hail) after the storm was over in piles from two feet up to five feet high against the houses and in the low places, and there is plenty of the hail to be found yet this evening at 7 o’clock, in spite of the hot sun and clear skies for two days past – something unheard of and which probably can not be believed by a living soul not here to see for himself.
The bark was literally peeled off from many large trees, especially fruit trees. All orchards are ruined – not fruit, nor even a leaf, left on them. Hail and rainstorm lasted thirty to forty minutes. Everything will have to be planted over when dry enough. After six or eight week’s continual rains here (think of it!), say middle of June, what will we get? I expect to lose nearly all I sold on a credit, as this is the Mexican weevil district, and it is also much too late. As far as I know, the hail started near Warrenton and extended east to Sealy (about forty miles), in Austin county. Fayetteville was not touched.
C. T. Zapp
In an interview more than eighty years later, Ellis Garlin vividly remembered Willow Springs' frightening storm that occurred when he was seven years old. Ellis had crawled inside a barrel brought into the house from the front porch to avoid the baseball-size hail crashing through the windows. He remembered with irony that, amid all the destruction, hail had knocked a cup off the kitchen table without breaking it. The local mail carrier, Albert Schulze, had been caught in the storm and drove his horse and mail wagon right under the Ernst Albrecht family's covered porch to save himself. The big hailstorm of 1907 was definitely an unforgettable act of nature.
From Fayette County, Her History and Her People by F. Lotto, 1902:
Zapp
Zapp [Willow Springs] is situated about seven miles north of Fayetteville in the extreme eastern portion of the county on Willow Spring. A more pleasing landscape can hardly be found in the state. The elegant white painted farmhouses, the substantial large barns, in the midst of verdant fields, speak of the industry of its people. The people are well-to-do, independent and contented. They enjoy life, being well fixed against any contingencies. The population is German and Bohemian. The place was named after C. T. Zapp, who was the first postmaster in that place (1881.) [This is incorrect. See note 1 below.] Zapp is also called Willow Springs, after the school by that name, which for the last few years has been under the able direction of a thorough and conscientious teacher, Prof. Wm. Haverlah.
C. F. Garlin, a very accommodating gentleman, is the present postmaster and merchant of that place. His reliability and congenial ways deserve the custom of the neighborhood. Ad. Weige is a young blacksmith at that place, a skillful workman and a good honest man. L. C. Muenzler owns a very fine gin, does very good work in his line and satisfies his customers. [Each of the preceding bought advertisements in Lotto's book.]
Zapp is a very old settlement. It was settled early in the thirties and as early as 1839 it is spoken of in the minutes of the commissioners' court as the German settlement. Old settlers are F. Garlin, Ad. Schulz, Wm. Krebs, Gerh. Heinsohn, Wm. Weidemann, F. Scharnberg, Mrs. Johanna Heinsohn (age 96 years)[see note 2], Julius Krebs. Among the old settlers who have passed from life and gone to whence there is no return Carl Albrecht, A. Muenzler, F. Pagel, Christian Henniger may be named.
Notes:
[1] Willow Springs' first postmaster was actually Friedrich "Wilhelm" Pagel who held that position from 1871 until 1873 when he died. During that period the community was known as Rock House Post Office or just Rockhouse after Wm. Pagel's home which was built of plastered-over rock. Ernst Witte, who lived across the county line in Austin County, became the Rockhouse postmaster after Pagel's death. That community in Austin County is still known as "Rockhouse" today.
In 1881 Charles T. Zapp, who lived directly across the road from where Pagel lived, became postmaster with the post office at his general store. The old Rockhouse community in Fayette County became known as Zapp Post Office or Zapp.
Charles F. Garlin was postmaster between 1892 and 1903, then the job went back to Charlie Zapp. The Zapp post office was discontinued on November 30,1906 and the Willow Springs community has been served by the Fayetteville post office since that time.
[2] There was never a Johanna Heinsohn living in the Willow Springs area. The only older Heinsohn woman living in the vicinity was Sophie Fehrenkamp Heinsohn, but she was only sixty-four at the time. Lotto might possibly have been referring to Johanna Pagel who was ninety-two the year his book was published.
From Fayette County History - Willow Springs
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See photo in gallery
C. T. Zapp Home & Store
ca 1891
Left to Right: Charles Theodore Zapp holding Werner, Mary Heinsohn Zapp holding Bernetta, Ottilie, Charles "Walter", and Theodore
While dry goods and groceries were sold downstarirs, the upstairs of the building was used as a dance hall. The Zapps bought the store in 1880 from Frank and Rosina Stanislow. The store was sold to C. F. and Fanny Garlin on December 30, 1891, but the Garlins sold it back to the Zapps in 1903. Both C. T. Zapp and H. C. Garlin acted as postmaster of the Zapp Post Office. The store changed hands several more times and the upper level was removed by F. H. Meinen in the early 1920's. E. C. Minsssen bought the store in 1925. The building was destroyed by fire in 1962 and a dance hall just outside Willow Springs was moved in to replace it. The new building had originally been used at Camp Swift. Today, the E. C. Minssen Store is still owned by Mr. Minssen's family.
C. T. Zapp's Account of the infamous May 31, 1907 hail storm at Willow Springs:
Weimar Mercury
June 15, 1907
Hail in Fayette County.
The following letter was received here yesterday by Mr. Robert Zapp from his cousin:
Zapp, Fayette Co., Tex., June 2.
We are nearly over our big fright of Friday evening. I have heard of hailstorms, but nothing like this one – hail from the size of hen eggs up to the size of your fist. It broke 123 window panes and window sash for us; cracked and broke the blinds and split all the shingles on the north and west side of the houses, unroofing some; knocked some off their foundation, and holes in some roofs as big as a hat, and water just poured into the broken windows in torrents. Biggest rain we ever heard of, afterward doing much damage (you know our store is two-story).
Storm twisted off our new windmill, destroyed fences, uprooted trees; not one leaf left on many large trees, nor on corn and cotton, vegetation, etc. Even weeds were all killed by hail in fields and pastures, and not thirty days' feed left of neither hay nor corn of 1906 crop, and price raised at once at Fayetteville to $1 per bushel for corn. Two of our horses and many others rain into the barbed wire fences though fright and were butchered up considerably. I expect one of our nice blacks will die. Hundred of chickens, rabbits, snakes and thousands of birds were killed by the hail, which was found (the hail) after the storm was over in piles from two feet up to five feet high against the houses and in the low places, and there is plenty of the hail to be found yet this evening at 7 o'clock, in spite of the hot sun and clear skies for two days past – something unheard of and which probably can not be believed by a living soul not here to see for himself.
The bark was literally peeled off from many large trees, especially fruit trees. All orchards are ruined – not fruit, nor even a leaf, left on them. Hail and rainstorm lasted thirty to forty minutes. Everything will have to be planted over when dry enough. After six or eight week's continual rains here (think of it!), say middle of June, what will we get? I expect to lose nearly all I sold on a credit, as this is the Mexican weevil district, and it is also much too late. As far as I know, the hail started near Warrenton and extended east to Sealy (about forty miles), in Austin county. Fayetteville was not touched.
C. T. Zapp