Family:Joseph Stein and Emilia Luderus (1)

Joseph and Emilia were community leaders in Rockdale, known county-wide for their generosity. Joseph served as a volunteer fireman, and donated both goods and money to various charitable organizations. The Steins were also well-known as a musical family. Joseph believed each child should know how to play a musical instrument and taught them himself. Often neighbors spent evenings listening to the little family band play from their front porch

Joseph and Emilia met in San Antonio, Bexar, Texas, where his family settled after their emigration from Germany and Emilia lived with her mother, step-father, and brothers, who were bakers. It was most likely that occupation that brought the couple together as in the 1891 city directory both Joseph and Emilia's stepfather, Frank Wagner, were listed as bakers. Although they did not work for the same bakery. Joseph was employed by Rickter Bakery, and Frank worked for Louis Dietzel, before forming Wagner & Luderus Bakery with his step-son Pete John.

After their marriage, the couple moved to Dallas, where Joseph worked at a large bakery there. He is mentioned as living in Dallas in his father's obituary November of 1896, but the family had already moved to Calvert, as since their second child was born there in October of that same year. Finally, the family settled in Rockdale, Milam County, where Joseph and Emily lived out the rest of their life. Family oral history says that Joseph wanted to find a town with potential for growth that did not already have a bakery. The family owned both the local bakery and a grocery store, the later probably opeining between 1920 and 1930. Joseph's occupation in 1900, 1910, and 1920 census records was given as baker and in 1930 as retail merchant. By 1940 he had retired probably because of his health issues. Joseph suffered from an unknown crippling disease (now thought by family members to have been multiple sclerosis).

In the mid-1930s, because of ill-feeling toward German born Americans, he searched for the naturalization papers his father had taken out for him when the family had emigrated in the early 1880s. Discovering that they had been destroyed in a fire, he reapplied for citizenship so that there would be no doubt as to his loyalty. Since he was practically blind, his children read to his the U.S. Constitution which he memorized. I found a copy of his naturalization application at the courthouse in Milam County, Texas.

Joseph was raised as a Catholic and Emilia as a Lutheran. He became disenchanted with the Catholic church as an adult, but donated money to several local churches in Rockdale because he thought they were good for the community. Emilia became a member of Peace Lutheran church in Rockdale, where all of their children were baptized.

Joseph and Emilia are buried in Oddfellow Cemetery in Rockdale.

1.   Family Bible.