\n
![\"Dot](\"http:\/\/www.celiahayes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Dot-cover-smaller.jpg\")
<\/a>Daughter of Texas<\/em>: Runs from 1825, and begins with the Becker family arriving in Texas: Margaret, her brothers Rudi and Carl, her parents Alois and Maria. The narrative deals with early days in the entrepreneur settlements of San Felipe-on-the-Brazos, and Gonzalez, Margaret\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s marriage to the local school-teacher, Horace \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Race\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Vining, the build-up to and the outbreak of the War for Independence, the Runaway Scrape and the battle of San Jacinto. The remainder of the book tells of Margaret\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life in the tiny settlement of Waterloo, which became Austin, up to the year 1840 and the death of her first husband, under circumstances which set up plot elements of Sunset and Steel Rails \u00e2\u20ac\u201c which is set a generation and forty-five years later. Besides Margaret, her brother Carl and her son Peter Vining as an infant, this book introduces the characters of Daddy Hurst, and sisters Hetty and Morag Moylan, carpenter and part-time soldier Seamus O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Doyle and Dr. Henry Williamson. Sam Houston, Harry Karnes, James Bowie, William B. Travis, Susannah Dickinson and her daughter, and those members of the Gonzalez Ranging company who went to the relief of the Alamo, Deaf Smith, Mirabeau B. Lamar, and Angelina Eberly are some of the historic figures which appear in this book.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/a>Deep in the Heart<\/em>: This book runs from 1841 to 1847, and overlaps some of the events and developments in Adelsverein: The Gathering \u00e2\u20ac\u201c although there is a brief \u00e2\u20ac\u0153bookend\u00e2\u20ac\u009d introduction and afterwards set in 1865, as the Civil War ends. This narrative follows Margaret and her four sons and her friends: she is a widow running a boarding-house in Austin catering to members of the legislature. Her younger brother Carl serves as one of Jack Hays\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Rangers, fighting Comanche war parties in the unsettled Hill Country, the invading Mexican army at the Salado Creek fight, and barely surviving the Battle of Monterrey during the Mexican-American War. The main narrative ends with Margaret\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s second marriage. Historical figures appearing in this book include Sam and Margaret Houston, Angelina Eberly, Jack Hays and many real-life residents of contemporary Austin.<\/p>\n<\/a>Adelsverein: The Gathering<\/em> runs from 1844 to 1849. Carl Becker is a major character here; Margaret makes a very brief appearance. This book is about the recruitment and emigration of German settlers by the Mainzer Adelsverein and their arrival in Texas \u00e2\u20ac\u201c in this story, represented by the Steinmetz and Richter families: Christian Steinmetz, his wife Hannah, step-daughter Magda Vogel, his sons Johann and Friedrich \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Fredi\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and his daughter Liesel, who is married to Hans \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Hansi\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Richter and has two children with him; Anna and an infant named Joachim. The narrative follows their journey \u00e2\u20ac\u201c first by sailing ship across the Atlantic, and by wagon train to first New Braunfels, and then to the new town of Fredericksburg, where they happily settle and begin to build prosperous new lives for themselves. The Steinmetz and Richter families are fictional, as are their friends, the Altemeullers \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but most of their neighbors in the new settlements are historical figures, including John Meusebach and the innkeeper C.H. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Charley\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Nimitz. Prince Karl of Solms-Braunfels appears in this volume, along with his retinue, Jack Hays (again), Indian agent Robert Neighbors, Samuel Maverick, his wife and their household. One minor character \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Porfirio Menchaca, the Tejano horse-wrangler at Carl Becker\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ranch, who appears at the end of this book, is the son of an old friend of Horace Vining\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, as mentioned in Daughter of Texas. Porfirio appears as a minor character in the subsequent Adelsverein Trilogy books, and in The Quivera Trail.<\/p>\n<\/a>The Golden Road<\/em>: This book follows the teenaged Friedrich \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Fredi\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Steinmetz to the gold fields of California during the years 1855-59. It was mentioned in Adelsverein: The Sowing, and in Sunset and Steel Rails that Fredi followed the Gold Rush, but without any particular success that he wished to talk about later. During those years, Fredi works as a cattle drover, freight hauler, washes dishes in a saloon, sells newspapers on the street, rides for an express mail company, and serves as bodyguard\/stagehand for Lotta Crabtree, as she and her mother tour the gold mines. He does pan a little gold, too, in company with a mysterious and musical Irishman named Polydore O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Malley, who may be wanted in England for an attempt on the life of Queen Victoria. Or not. O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Malley is fictional, but Fredi does encounter a number of historical characters, some before they became famous \u00e2\u20ac\u201c or notorious \u00e2\u20ac\u201c including Sally Skull, Jack Slade, Charles Goodnight, Roy Bean, Juaquin Murrietta, William T. Sherman, Mary Ellen Pleasant, Old Virginny Finney, Lotta Crabtree, and Ulysses S. Grant.<\/p>\n<\/a>Adelsverein: The Sowing<\/em>. The second volume of the Adelsverein Trilogy covers the Civil War years, 1860-65, chiefly following the lives of Carl and Magda Becker and their family, Hansi and Liesel Richter and their children during that time. The main narrative ends with the wedding of Magda and Liesel\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s adopted young sister Rosalie to a returning Confederate soldier at the end of the war. There are a pair of brief \u00e2\u20ac\u0153bookends\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201c opening and closing the book, set around 1910 with the aged Magda telling several of her grandchildren and greatgrandchildren of what happened during the war. Magda\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s brothers Johann and Fredi appear briefly, as does Porfirio Menchaca. Historical characters appearing in this book include (again) Jack Hays, Dr. Ferdinand Herff of San Antonio, Dr.Wilhelm Keidel of Fredericksburg, and a leader of the notorious \u00e2\u20ac\u0153hanging band\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, J.P. Waldrip.<\/p>\n