Before Palestine Opened

Carl Adolph Stendebach Sr. (b. December 26, 1910; d. August 5, 1993, Palestine, Texas) appears in three held evidence items: named in ev-0041 as a worker in the factory’s mold-making section who moved to Palestine when the factory closed; identified in ev-0015 as “a mold designer at the Three Rivers Glass Factory until it closed in 1937” who then worked in Pennsylvania before settling in Palestine; and placed by ev-0021 — a 1940 federal draft card and a 1950 census entry — at a Knox Glass affiliate in Parkers Landing, Pennsylvania in October 1940, then at a Palestine glass plant as shop foreman by 1950. He is the one named, primary-record-documented case of a Three Rivers Glass worker whose post-closure path is traceable through federal records.

At Three Rivers

His father Adolph Stendebach (b. 1888, Boerne) and mother Fannie (née Bowers) moved to Hamiltonburg — the settlement later renamed Three Rivers — in 1913, the year the town was founded [ev-0015]. Carl was the eldest of seven children. He married Daisy Ruth Claunch; the 1950 census records a marriage of approximately nineteen years, placing the marriage around 1931 [ev-0021].

His birthplace is in disagreement across the held sources. The 1940 WWII draft card gives his birthplace as San Antonio [ev-0021]. The Bee-Picayune family history article and the Find a Grave memorial both record him as born in Three Rivers, Live Oak County [ev-0015]. The same source carries a fact that bears on the disagreement: it places his parents’ arrival in Hamiltonburg in 1913, three years after his December 1910 birth, so ev-0015 records both that he was born in Three Rivers and that his family reached it afterward [ev-0015]. Whether the discrepancy reflects a registration error, a family-memory error, or actual birth circumstances is not stated in any held document, and no held document reconciles ev-0015 with itself on this point.

The Lindholm marker research binder places him in a passage about the factory’s mold-making work: “Six experts are kept constantly busy designing and making new ones… Carl Stendebach, when the Glass Factory closed he moved to Palestine, Texas, continued working in a Glass Factory there. Resides in Palestine today, 1973” [ev-0041]. The binder does not give his title or his dates at the factory. The Bee-Picayune article — written independently, with family input, ca. 2013 — calls him “a mold designer at the Three Rivers Glass Factory” [ev-0015]. No held document states when he started there.

In Pennsylvania

The most significant finding in the held evidence is what the 1940 draft card establishes. Registered on October 16, 1940, in Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, the card records his employer as Wightman Bottle & Glass Co., Parkers Landing, Armstrong County, Pennsylvania [ev-0021]. Identity is certain: the card matches his name, exact birthdate, and wife Daisy Ruth.

According to SHA and BRG glass-marks monographs cited in ev-0021, Wightman Bottle & Glass Co. became a Knox Glass affiliate in 1921. After a 1929 fire, Knox rebuilt it as a Knox unit while retaining the Wightman name. Knox opened its Palestine, Texas, plant on July 5, 1941. When Stendebach registered at Parkers Landing on October 16, 1940, he was inside the Knox organization nine months before the Palestine plant opened [ev-0021].

The Bee-Picayune article records only that Carl and Daisy “moved to Pennsylvania where he worked for a glass factory” and later moved to Palestine — it does not name the employer or give dates [ev-0015]. The draft card is what identifies the employer and dates the Pennsylvania period with precision.

A search of the Three Rivers 1940 census images (ED 149-6) found his relatives — Adolph, Woodrow, John, and Edwin Stendebach — but not Carl or Daisy [ev-0021]. This is consistent with their having left Texas before the April 1940 enumeration. When they departed — 1937, 1938, or later — is not established in any held document.

One further detail in ev-0021: the Wightman plant at Parkers Landing used the P-in-keystone mark. Palestine’s Knox plant became T-in-keystone because the P mark was already taken by Parkers Landing. The ex-Three Rivers mold designer was employed at the plant whose mark Palestine could not use.

At Palestine

The 1950 census places the Stendebach household in Palestine, Anderson County, Texas (ED 1-14) [ev-0021]. Carl, 39, is listed as shop foreman at a glass company, 62 hours per week; wife Daisy, 37, is keeping house; son Carl Jr., 14, is at home. The census records an income of approximately $5,600.

The Lindholm binder, compiled 1971–1973, notes he “Resides in Palestine today, 1973” [ev-0041]. The Bee-Picayune article records that he died August 5, 1993, in Palestine — buried at Roselawn Park Cemetery, Palestine, sharing a stone with Daisy [ev-0015].

The Find a Grave memorial states he “served in WWI, in the Calvary.” Carl Stendebach was born in 1910; he was eight years old when World War I ended. This is almost certainly a transcription error — WWII and cavalry. No held document gives any military service record.

What this expert does not hold about him

No held document gives his start date at the factory or how many years he worked before the closure. What specific molds or bottle designs he made is not stated in any held account; the binder places him in the mold-making section but attributes no specific design to him. How he came to be employed at the Pennsylvania glass house — who recruited him, whether he went directly from Texas or by intermediate stops, and when he left Texas — is not stated in any held document. Whether he worked at other glass plants in Pennsylvania before or after October 1940 is not established. What his role was at the glass plant he settled at beyond the shop-foreman census entry, what he oversaw, and how long he held that title are not in any held record. Whether he had any active role in the 1973 marker project or provided materials to its organizers is not established; the binder records his name but contains no correspondence from him.