Aaron
Elizabeth Sarah Mary
Silbernia Augustus James Luther
John William George
George Washington Redus b. Jul 5, 1837, Athens, Alabama, m. Dec 24, 1865, in Medina County, Texas, Annie Kie McLemore, b. Feb 2, 1847, Meridian, Mississippi, (daughter of Daniel McLemore and Elizabeth Kelly). George died Apr 9, 1873, Hondo, Texas, buried: Masonic Cemetery #6, San Antonio, Texas. Children: i Louis A. Redus b. Dec 24, 1867, Medina County, Texas, d. Mar 4, 1884, Georgetown, Texas, buried: Masonic Cemetery #6, San Antonio, Texas. ii George Matthew Redus b. Aug 13, 1869, Medina County, Texas, d. Dec 9, 1891, San Antonio, Texas, buried: Masonic Cemetery #6, San Antonio, Texas.
Laura McLemore Burnett, Annie Kie McLemore Redus
Sallie McLemore Redus, Nancy McLemore DeBerry, Mary McLemore Burrows
GOZA, ANNIE KIE MCLEMORE REDUS
Every generation has its eccentrics. The pioneer era had Annie Kie McLemore, well remembered by old timers in Hondo as being the strangest woman they had ever known.
Annie Kie was born Feb. 2, 1843 in Alabama to Sarah and Daniel McLemore. They brought their nine children and 11 slaves to the Mississippi Delta, boarded a boat and came to Galveston. The land was too boggy to drive their wagons through so they boarded a second boat to Point Isabel, landed and came up through Central Texas to Gonzales. By then they had used up their funds and supplies, so the entire family had to go to work in the cotton fields.
When stockmen started to move west to raise cattle, Mr. and Mrs. McLemore and their five daughters moved to the wild country and bought land for $2 an acre on the Hondo Creek at the present site of the U.S. Highway 90 bridge.
It was a dry year, crops were poor and there was no cotton to pick. Daniel decided to build a rock home before winter. The slaves-hauled river rock to the building site and made the walls on the home 18 inches thick. Before the first norther came Sarah and the girls made a shelter of four iron bars and covered them with thick straw. Their closest friends were four miles away at the settlement of New Fountain. Those dear people would warn them of expected Indian raids, which came every full moon, so they could lock up everything.
Kie, the youngest of the girls, married George W. Redus Dec. 24,1865. They had two sons; Louis A. (Dec. 24, 1867 - Mar. 4, 1884), and George Mathew (Aug. 13, 1869 - Dec. 5, 1891). Husband George, age 33, died in 1870. Later Kie married Dr. George Goza, a newcomer to the frontier from France, and bought the McLemore ranch. Later he built the beautiful gingerbread house that still stands on the corner of Ave. M and 21st in Hondo facing Memorial Park.
They had a daughter, Ada Pauline, (July 25, 1877 - Mar. 25, 1879). Aunt Kie was always in mourning and being a person of tradition she wore only black. She was tall and proud of her thinness yet she could work like man and handle mules, truly a rugged western individualist.
She had a one-seated buggy and drove all around. Children were afraid of her yet she dearly loved a young great-niece, Dora Mae McAnelly Faseler.
She was not a church-goer but went to camp meetings on the river to hear her brother-in-law, John Redus, sing as he had a beautiful voice.
Kie had no flair for cooking though she had fine china, linens and silverware. She would cook a large iron kettle of beans and eat them until they were gone. Invited folk were afraid to eat them after the first day. For an apron she wore a gunny sack.
She preferred to live alone and was absolutely fearless. She was never molested though she had large sums of money in her possession.
One time she went to the store and a fresh barrel of sauerkraut had come in. As she did not have a container with her and she was to tight to invest in a new one, she bought a slop jar and had if filled with the kraut. When she got home the kraut was too repulsive to eat, so she threw it out.
She was known to dig up her loved ones buried in the New Fountain Cemetery and rebury them in the San Antonio Masonic Cemetery No. 3. The story goes that she was gone two days, and no one knew where she was. She dug up her father, both husbands and her little daughter, put them in a wagon and drove all night to San Antonio. A sister asked her if she wasn't afraid and she replied, "No, George was with me."
She married two more times, but both marriages were of short duration and both ended in divorce, which was unheard of at this time.
Kie will be remembered for the cancer hole on the side of her nose which she never covered.
Three weeks before she died she drew up the longest will ever written in Medina County, most of her personal things going to the Redus side of the family and to the McLemore sisters, Pernice, Mary (the first two brides in the Methodist Church in Hondo in 1857); Laura, Sallie Redus (1839-1931) and a sister-in-law Laura B. Redus (1870-1966) in Devine.
She sold her home, went to the hospital in San Antonio and died a week later, July 26, 1918, at age 75 and was buried beside George Redus.
My husband Otis Mathew Redus, (1905- ) son of John Otis and Laura Belle Redus, was named after his father and his eccentric Aunt Kei's second son.
by Mrs. 0. M. Redus