Background
Alene Webb Puterbaugh (1890-1985) was Tom Garrard’s first cousin. In 1902, her widowed mother, Mattie Oliver Webb, married Felix Webster. Webster was a prominent cotton broker in Dallas, Texas. By 1914, Mr. Webster was dying from an enlarged heart. In June, 1914, he decided to travel to Baden Nauheim, a resort in Germany, hoping that the mineral springs there would prove beneficial to his heart. He would later die in Bremen, Germany, in the midst of World War I, while waiting for a ship to take him back home. Alene’s mother, worried at the thought of leaving her only daughter alone in the United States, decided to bring Alene along to Germany – Alene was supposed to go to a dude ranch that summer and was not pleased.
What follows are highlights from that trip to Europe, namely, the circumstances which led to the separation of Mr. Webster and his nephew from Alene and her mother and the circumstances by which they were reunited. The above images tell the entire story, if you wish to know more details. The story, “My Remembrances of Mr. Webster,” was written by Alene Webb Puterbaugh for Felix Webster’s granddaughter, Jane Prather Potter, on March 15, 1979.
We pick up the story…
…with Felix Webster determining that the mineral waters are doing his heart no good and that he wants to go back to Dallas.
The doctors suggested that Mrs. Webster take a vacation to get some rest before returning to the United States, as she had not left her husband’s side for the entirety of his stay at the sanitarium. Arrangements were made for Mr. Webster and his nephew, who was travelling in Europe at the time with his wife on business, to wait for a ship to take them from Bremen back to the United States. Meanwhile, Alene and her mother would go to Paris and board the same ship when it arrived at the port of Cherbourg (Cherbourg-Octeville). Those plans were disrupted on June 28, 1914, when Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated. Alene was out riding with a young German man when the news broke.
“This means war…”
… said the young German to Alene when they heard the news. He immediately left Nauheim and received notice that he was to join his regiment while on the train.
Alene, convinced that the young man was foolish, and her mother continued on to Paris by way of Strasbourg, oblivious of what was unfolding around them. When they arrived, they met up with a former neighbor and dear friend, Miss Ona Brown, who took groups of girls from Texas on a 3-month tour of Europe every summer. France declared war the night after Alene and her mother arrived in Paris. Miss Brown, realizing the seriousness of the situation, made arrangements for the group to board the first train the next morning to The Hague, where they would seek asylum at the American Embassy. When the morning came, they pushed and shoved their way through the throngs of people attempting to flee France. The train they boarded was packed, with people hanging out of the windows and riding on the roofs of the cars. They made it to The Hague but were separated from Mr. Webster.
The American Embassy was packed with fellow American travelers who, like Alene and her mother, found themselves stuck in Europe as countries mobilized their forces to the battlefront. U.S. Minister to the Netherlands, Henry Van Dyke, swung into action, doing everything he could to secure the passage and safety of the Americans at the embassy. A first-hand account of Van Dyke’s exploits during this period can be found in his book, The Works of Henry Van Dyke: Pro Patria: The Spirit of America, Fighting for Peace. Amazingly, he referenced the work he did for Alene and her mother on page 345:
Ona Brown and her group of girls were able to leave a couple days earlier and, not knowing how long Alene and her mother would be in Europe, they gave the mother and daughter all the money they could spare. Alene recalled having $6,000 hidden in her clothes (according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index Inflation Calculator, this would be like having $142,266.60 in your pocket today). After much wrangling, during which time Alene spent days going back and forth between the American and German Embassies, they were able to make contact with Mr. Webster and secure passage to meet him in warring Germany.
The adventure wasn’t over with, as Alene and her mother made their way to the North Sea and boarded the boat that would take them into Germany. Upon arrival, they were surrounded by German soldiers who did not seem pleased by the presence of the American tourists. With the documents that Minister Van Dyke gave Alene, they were able to board a train for Bremen that was carrying German soldiers.
Alene recalled:
“The thing I most remember about that ride, besides my weariness and terror, was the men in the next car singing and how beautiful their singing was. I am sure they must have been singing parts of Wagner’s operas for I never went to one of Wagner’s operas that I didn’t remember vividly that long terrifying night and the beauty of that music that came out of the darkness.”
Alene and her mother arrived at Bremen during the night and were reunited with Mr. Webster and his nephew and nephew’s wife at their hotel. Because Kaiser Wilhelm II suspended all non-troop related travel, the group had to wait until the travel ban was lifted before they could board a ship for home. About a week after they were reunited, Mr. Webster was sitting outside with one of his nurses when he suddenly slumped over, dead. After dealing with some red tape, they were able to get a casket for Mr. Webster and get his body back to the United States. Alene recalled the ship back to New York being overcrowded and uncomfortable but they eventually made it back home and buried Mr. Webster as soon as possible.
Epilogue
While waiting at the hotel in Bremen to return home, the Webster group befriended an English woman whose husband was a German U-boat pilot and her children. Prior to World War I, Germany was a major customer of American cotton. Before the United States entered the war, Mr. Webster’s nephew went down to one of the southern ports to negotiate the sale of cotton to a contingent of Germans who had arrived in a submarine. When the submarine captain learned of the nephew’s name he asked him if he knew Felix Webster. The nephew responded that Mr. Webster was his uncle. The submarine captain thanked the nephew for showing so much kindness to his wife during the early days of the war and asked him to put flowers on Mr. Webster’s grave.
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