Uncovering Family History

Uncovering family history that has remained hidden for decades can be really exciting, but also more than a little of a shock to one’s system, to learn what one’s ancestors went through, at a time when we, frankly, have it pretty easy in most ways. Sure, there are some things that are tough for our generation, including assuring our democracy works effectively and justly, amid all the current political divisiveness. Yet earlier generations in my family also faced some tough but very different obligations of citizenship. . .

An older cousin, Carolyn (Citzler) Bennetsen, told me a year or two ago that her father had served on the jury of a murder trial in Fayette County sometime in her pre-school years. But I had a vague memory that our grandfather, Max Citzler, also told a story about serving on a jury of a murder case in the 1920’s or 1930’s, but Grandpa’s story was from many decades back in my own life (Grandpa Citzler died in 1976, when I was 27), so it was indeed a foggy memory. These trials puzzled me . . .

Then at a church event recently, I sat across from John D. and Kay Marburger, and when I mentioned these jury trials, John D. remembered that a New Braunfels doctor*, convicted in a murder trial in 1947, returned to La Grange after he was paroled later in his life, and he lived in La Grange with Deputy Sheriff Charlie Prilop and Louiserine Prilop, with whom the doctor attended worship services at St. Paul Lutheran Church. I even remember sitting across the aisle from them occasionally several decades ago now. So I looked up information about this man’s trial in the Fayette County Record Archives, and sure enough, the Record reported the jury members, including: “Arthur Citzler, 30, farmer, married, with four daughters” [one of whom was Carolyn].

Interestingly, further research revealed that the doctor’s trial was in La Grange on a change-of-venue basis, since the publicity about the murder (actually the killing of a securities investor and three of his other family members) meant no fair jury could be impaneled in New Braunfels. And, as was customary with a change of venue then, two local attorneys were involved in the trial: John C. Marburger (John D.’s father) as part of the prosecuting team, and C.C. Jopling as part of the defense.

The doctor’s jury was sequestered, according to Carolyn, and her dad was away from home for several nights, presumably staying at the Lester Hotel, though I have not yet found evidence that confirms this location. The defendant was convicted and sentenced to death, but later had his death sentence invalidated due to insanity. He remained in custody for decades before being released or paroled.

And the other trial? Another internet search, and a 1933 case came up, most recently in a 2020 issue of Texas Co-op Power magazine. The magazine article itself has no information about the jurors, but a search through the Fayette County Record archives again found trial articles, one revealing that twelve jurors were selected, including “H. G. Citzler.” AHA: my Grandpa Citzler’s brother, Herman!

The 1933 trial was covered nationally: a Fayette County woman* was convicted of murdering her farm hand, shooting him to death and then burying him under a new chicken coop in 1933. Her jury also condemned her to death, and she might have become the first woman to die in the electric chair in Texas, but she instead starved herself to death by late August of that same year.

What must it have been like for these two Citzler men, less than 15 years apart, to be sitting on juries that convicted first a man and then a woman in death penalty cases that were covered beyond the state of Texas? Most of us NEVER sit on a jury of any trial, much less two Citzlers (uncle and nephew) chosen for famous murder trials in the same Texas county, in 1933 and 1947. I am still amazed that I am just now, in my 8th decade, learning the details about this.

There’s something about families, right? We want to protect those we love from trauma we are going through at the time, such as serving on a capital murder trial jury. So we don’t talk about it much, and we surely wouldn’t wish to profit from it by making a big deal about our own part in such tragic events, right? Somehow, families survive these things: the two Citzler men went back to being good fathers, loving towards their wives and children, working hard, supporting their families, paying their taxes, voting in elections, doing their civic duty.

Thank God for ancestors like these. I hope you have some like them to celebrate in your own lives, dear readers. If you don’t know about any yet, don’t be dismayed: they are probably there, and hidden behind the modesty of “just doing our civic duty.” God bless them all, known and unknown. And make us more like them. [*NOTE: names of the convicted perpetrators are redacted: I believe that we should not name them, so as neither to glamorize nor to sensationalize them. And I choose not to reveal the names of the victims, to honor the privacy of their descendants, with whom I have not been in touch. -AC]