Early Years
John O. Meusebach was born May 26, 1814, in Dillenburg, Duchy of Nassau, to Baron Karl Hartwig Gregor von Meusebach, a judge solicitor, and Ernestine von Meusebach née von Witzleben. He was the namesake of brother Orfried Isador (1806–1808) who died young. He had two older sisters, Ludowine and Caroline, and a younger brother Carl Bernhard. The children grew up in a home filled with music. Mother Ernestine was a pianist, and the family enjoyed entertaining visitors with the singing of poems, folk songs and hymns. The elder Meusebach, a poet himself, took delight in collecting German folk music and literature.
As an adult, Meusebach stood 6 foot 2 inches tall with reddish-blonde hair. Waco Indians near New Braunfels called him Ma-be-quo-si-to-mu, (Chief with the burning hair of the head). Penateka Comanche Chief Ketemoczy (Katemcy) named him El Sol Colorado (The Red Sun).
Read more about this topic: John O. Meusebach
Famous quotes containing the words early years, early and/or years:
“Parents ... are sometimes a bit of a disappointment to their children. They don’t fulfil the promise of their early years.”
—Anthony Powell (b. 1905)
“We have good reason to believe that memories of early childhood do not persist in consciousness because of the absence or fragmentary character of language covering this period. Words serve as fixatives for mental images. . . . Even at the end of the second year of life when word tags exist for a number of objects in the child’s life, these words are discrete and do not yet bind together the parts of an experience or organize them in a way that can produce a coherent memory.”
—Selma H. Fraiberg (20th century)
“When Prince William [later King William IV] was at Cork in 1787, an old officer ... dined with him, and happened to say he had been forty years in the service. The Prince with a sneer asked what he had learnt in those forty years. The old gentleman justly offended, said, “Sir, I have learnt, when I am no longer fit to fight, to make as good a retreat as I can” —and walked out of the room.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)