Gonzales County Texas Archives News.....Newspaper June 2, 1972
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Rex Moore ralmoore1@sbcglobal.net August 22, 2011, 5:39 pm

The Houston Post June 2, 1972
Walter Krause's Store (in Dreyer, Gonzales Co., TX)- by Leon Hale:
    As long as I've been traveling this state, still I run into little towns I 
never before heard of.  Just lately I spotted Dreyer on my road map.  It's on 
F.R. 443, just east of the Guadalupe between Gonzales and Yoakum.
    I stopped there at Krause's Store.  I hadn't got any country-store sitting 
done in about two months and Krause's has a weathered look I liked.  Faded 
vertical siding.  Door standing wide open.  A tall false front. A white house 
in back with a picket fence.
   Went in and met Walter Krause.  He didn't have any customers and was 
resting on a wide wooden bench covered with a patchwork quilt.
   A big home-type refrigerator with a mighty experienced appearance stands 
behind the counter.  A black safe by its side.  And an old cash register on 
top of the safe.  And on top of the register, on that narrow little ledge, lay 
a brindle cat, female, and very, very pregnant.
   "That's Missums," Walter Krause said from the bench, after we got the 
preliminaries over with.  "She was born here in the store.  The 19th of last 
August, she was 8 years old.  She used to do tricks.  My wife taught her.  
She'd roll over for a piece of sausage.  She sleeps up there on the register 
in summer so she can catch the breeze that comes through."
   Krause (in his 60's, I'd guess) has short hair and blue eyes and keeps a 
little grin all the time while he talks.  We sat and looked out the front 
window.   Dreyer is a small farming and cattle community and Krause's is its 
only store.  A country store with a view.  It sits on the lip of a rocky-
soiled ridge and from the window you look down in the Guadalupe Valley over 
hundreds and hundreds of acres of cultivated land.
   "The Flat," Krause said.  "We call it the Dreyer Flat.  It was named after 
some of the first folks here.  All the Flat used to be Dreyer land.  Now 
there's only one family of Dreyers left here, that the man is living. Willie 
Dreyer, he lives in The Flat.  Then, Lena Moore, she was a Dreyer..." 
   A sudden, frantic, scratching racket behind us. It was the brindle cat.  
She had tried to roll over in her sleep but there wasn't enough room on top of 
the cash register and she almost fell off.  She scratched back into position, 
and returned to her dreams.
    "I'm in business here my 27th year now," Krause went on.  "This store was 
built by a man named Ben Schumaker in 1918 but there was a store here sooner 
than that.  Now I'm the only country store on Farm Road 443, between Hochheim 
and the Gonzales-Shiner highway.  I keep open every day and the store hasn't 
ever been closed except for 17 days last year.  I had a stroke and was in the 
hospital."
   The grocery shelves (were) very lightly stocked.  Lots of empty space 
showing.  I read a notice posted behind the counter: "Roland Boedeker will 
lease or buy cotton acreage."
   "In 1893," Krause said, "my Grandpa Krause bought 160 acres of land here 
(on the hill, not down in the Flat).  I own 55 1/2 acres of it.  I'm the only 
Krause who still has some of the original land.  I have a few cows on it I 
tend to."
   I went back to the view out the front window and Krause said he was 
born "back in here a little way on Turkey Bottom Creek" and that his mother's 
folks were named Fahrenthold except they spelled it a little different than 
that lady running for governor.  Put an extra h in it, up front.
    "Alfonse Hartl lives there" Krause told me, nodding at the house just 
across F.R. 443 from the store.  "He comes most every day to play dominoes.  
Then the house with the green roof, down the road, that's where my wife's 
sister and her husband live, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Emken.  Both of them clerked 
in this store at one time.  They have land in the Flat."
    I walked to the back and stood among the old domino tables.  As in so many 
rural neighborhoods, the country store serves as a sort of recreation center.
    "Almost every night the men come," Krause said.  "It used to be that 
Tuesday and Friday were domino nights.  But after my wife died, the women quit 
coming."  He paused a moment.  "She - my wife, she had cancer.  Died in 
Methodist Hospital in Houston in 1966, and after that the women quit coming."
   A slight breeze moved through the open door, and the brindle cat shifted 
comfortably on the ledge of the cash register.   



Additional Comments:
My uncle, Ras Moore and family, lived just a mile or two down F.R. 443 from 
Krause's Store.  When I was growing up in the early '50's, I'd sometimes go 
and stay with my Uncle and family some during the summers.  We would often go 
to Krause's Store, him to play dominos and me to just drink RC Colas and play 
with the cat (not the same one in this article, I'm sure.  Lots of good 
memories about Krause's Store at Dreyer.

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