Bettina Von Arnim - Legacy

Legacy

The German-American settlement of Bettina in the state of Texas was founded in 1847 and named by its progressive, idealistic founders after Bettina von Arnim. Located near the joint of Elm Creek and the Llano River, it lasted only a year. No trace of the Bettina community survives, though two of its three founders, Gustav Schleicher—later a U.S. congressman and namesake of Schleicher County—and Dr. Ferdinand Ludwig Herff, who in 1854 became the first surgeon to use anesthesia in Texas, subsequently became prominent. The community's third founder was Hermann Spiess.

Part of von Arnim's design for a colossal statue of Goethe, executed in marble by the sculptor Karl Steinhauser (1813–1878), was displayed in the museum at Weimar in 1911.