Quote:
Originally Posted by rednichols
My good friend crazyphil aka lucky-b let me know about your latest post, Neale. A large amount of information has been gathered about your grandfather's contribution to the creation of the Brill holster and I'm happy to share any and all of it with you if you have an interest. Some of the information you've recited is supported by this evidence, and some of it is contradicted; and we can help each other by sorting it all out for 'holstory' (holster history). Options would be to reach out via the PM (private message) system; or simply keep posting. You should be especially interested in an article written in 2008 by a chap, still living the last time I checked, named Stan Nelson who met your grandfather around 1955 at which time Rabensburg (the name he gave) outlined to Nelson how he came to invent the Brill (didn't call it that but made a pair of them for Nelson) for Capt. Hughes. Here is one of them, and you will surely recognise it:
Attachment 341585 |
My recollection is probably not as good as it was just a few years ago, but I thought the Arno Brill, who stayed at my B&B introduced several years ago introduced himself as the 3rd. He would be a grandson of Arno Brill, who was a contemporary of my grandfather. I assume his father was a Junior. I have had no contact with him since, but I am trying to acquire more information so that I can send it to him to convince him of the existence of my grandfather with the A. W. Brill Company. As I said earlier, my grandfather had the A. W. Brill stamp in his collection of tools, and there is the 1959 Austin American article and the advertisement you mentioned. Rabensburg could not be espousing his ownership position in the company and keep the Brill family as close friends and associates if his statements were not indeed true.
There is an article in the LaGrange Journal newspaper that says the following: The La Grange Journal, December 2, 1909
Newton Rabensburg, for the past several years in the employ of the LaGrange Saddlery Company, left Sunday night for Dallas to enter the employ of a wholesale saddlery house. May good luck be yours, young man.
When I was in school, "few" meant about 2 years and several was about 3 years or more but probably not greater that 5 or thereabouts. If several was a true statement in the article, then N. J. Rabensburg as a 15/16 year-old was working in LaGrange at LaGrange Saddlery (1906 lets say). However, the archivist at the Fayette Heritage Museum and Archives in La Grange and myself believe it is also possible for Rabensburg to have made contacts in Austin and was acting as a wholesale supplier representing his LaGrange business. W. T. Wroe may have been one of the recipients of his wares. My God!, he is so young to be doing all of this and have the respect of much older adults. He had to be some sort of genius in his leather trade and wanted to further his career with travel and exposure. He did not let obstacles stand in his way. The aforementioned sounds very plausible since he went to Dallas as a 19 year-old in the wholesale saddlery business.