Howard Walter Marbach Jr. also known as "Howie" by his peers, was born on August 3, 1932 to Howard and Nelda Marbach. He was born in San Antonio and moved to Converse later that year. He was raised in Converse except for the one year he was in the navy and the two years he was drafted into the army. He had two brothers one of whom is now deceases and one sister. He has 196 hours at Saint Mary's University and was to receive a degree in economics, sacred theology and philosophy; but being "a young whipper snapper" he didn't except his degrees. He had enough ours for all those degrees but he wasn't very fond of the education system, still isn't. He was a senior research engineer at Southwest research institute for 46 years. He also had a construction company, which he sold 3 years ago. He still has a large agricultural business and another small business he operates quite successfully, helping people build their financial life. He's now in seven community service organizations in the converse area. He's been married for 56 years to Elaine Ann Brehm Marbach. They had 8 kids one of them passed away, but "seven are alive and happy". He likes to read books, at least one a week most are books on economics, personal development, leadership, and psychology, and philosophy. He also likes to hunt and fish. Family is also a hobby he says because when you have 21 grand children it kind of has to be. He also loves to work. He says "work is what makes life sweet…life is made for doing things". He's still active in his church and he introduces education, which he's been doing for 46 years.

The great depression probably did not affect Converse you talking about the one in the 30's I guess. Really I was just born on the tail end of that. It really didn't affect the converse community so much because they were all farm oriented, and most farmers raised their own food at the time. So it really didn't affect the community that much.

World War II probably except for the young men that we had to have go in the military and lost their lives, but it was probably a boom to converse due to Randolph air force base and of coarse fort Sam. The increase of the military affected us. It made times pretty good except for the sadness, and of coarse everybody had rationing and things like that regardless where you were.

Well not to me. To me the Korean War was most important because that's where I was, and I guess the Korean War was kind of the forgotten war. 50 something thousand people got killed. I guess they just forgot about them. The Vietnam War was another war that I believe like Iraq, America has taken on without the intention of really winning. We just want to control peace, but that's another story.

Nothing much.

It used to be. This was all farming grounds but is not any more, because most is except for maybe a hundred acres and some pasturelands has been used for homes, apartments, and businesses.

Cotton was one of the major crops that we had. We had two cotton gins in converse years ago, and of coarse cotton along with corn. And of course along the later years, after the Second World War grain became like Milo and things like that became important to the economy because it was used to feed livestock, beef and things like that.

Extremely, in fact Schertz, Cibolo, Marion, and Kirby these were staging areas for the building of the railroad in the late 60's early 70's. In the 1870's that is. And they were staging areas and they worked from that area. It was kind of a little tent town I guess, because it was consulate business that was there because the people were there. And all these different communities eventually sprung up. It affected converse quite a bit, especially the shipping of cotton seeing as how we had two cotton gins.

I saw a map of property that was owned in 1832 of property around San Antonio, toward New Braunfels. At the time the majority of the land titles that were held had Spanish surnames. Then 1840 to 1855 New Braunfels was settled. These were German immigrants that came over from Germany. They didn't settle in New Braunfels, they settled in Bernie, Fredericksburg, and Kirby areas. And the next map I was able to find. In 1860 the majority of the landowner titles were by German surnames with a few polish, and a few Spanish names. So I guess it's the people from New Braunfels that wanted to do like the old saying is "go west young men, go west", but they were west towards San Antonio, or from Bernie coming toward San Antonio. And from that short period of time on it was a start of change. Back in 1864 the Community was growing quite a bit. 1864 the first school was built. It was a one-room schoolhouse. It's sad to say its no longer there it stood for many, many years. Then around the same time James Converse was summoned to let the federal government build a railroad from Houston to San Antonio, and the Civil War interrupted the building of that. James Converse went into the confederate army, and came out after the war as a major. The government continued to contract him again to build the Galveston-Harrisburg railroad from Galveston to Houston to San Antonio, and to Laredo. In 1872 Major Converse purchased four lots along the railroad track. Why he bought them here no one will ever know, you know? That's how that became Converse. He also bought a lot of ranch land too. In 1877 the first train passed through converse.1892 we had the first post office at that time. Converse included a 10 to 15 mile radius. Converse was a thriving little community. They were hard working farmers. Predominant crops were cotton and corn, and we had a few dairy farms. I wasn't here yet just what I've heard of. In 1892 a brick store saloon was built here in Converse. It was called Simon and Borgfeld, built by Simon and sons. A year before that in 1891 Salatrillo Liederkranz was formed and it was a German singing club. They built a "singaholly" which is a German singing hall. It was also a dance hall. It was close to the school. 1896, the second organization formed was Converse Sons of Herman's Lodge. Back then in 1896-1908 another store was built. Also Simon and Boyful built a cotton gin across the street from it. The first black smith we had was George Esser. In 1908 Carl Boeck built another blacksmith shop. 1905 The Herman sons established the first cemetery in the area. In 1921 another school was built.

No, it was cut in half and moved. I hate to say but converse has been horrible to antiquities. We needed a fire station there was no money, so they used it to build a fire station. Our train station are no longer here either, they moved it. In 1910 the Salatrillo Liederkranz burned down. In 1923 they closed the old school and moved it horse drawn. Like I say we've been horrible with antiquity, but we are going to save what we have, because it's really hard to build the future if you don't have anything to build from in the past. In 1910 to 1930 3 grocery stores were built. One was Gold's red and white, one was Schertz store and one was Rudy's store. I know Theodore Kneupper built the cotton gin. A creaming and meat market by Jacob stout was built. And between 1919-1930 electricity and natural gas were brought in by Theodore Kneupper, who was my grandpa. He was able to do it by turning his gin into electricity, and was able to compete. They told him with an electric gin he could probably do twice as much as he could with a steam gin. Simon and Borgfeld had a steam gin. He was interested I guess in the financial aspect of it, being able to do twice as many than his competitors. So they ran electricity from San Antonio all the way out to here (Converse). They also talked to San Antonio into running a spur of gas lines into Converse, but they didn't want to because there weren't enough connection. So he said as soon as we get Randolph people they'll be building here, so ill be building nine connections. So they ran a spur of natural gas to Converse.