Woman's Monday Club Scrapbook

Page 15

By LOIS FELDER

            Mrs. Maude H. Gerhardt, who for more than 40 years has been identified with welfare work in Nueces County, resigned Monday from the county probation department.

            Her resignation has been accepted, effective Jan. 1, 1949, by the juvenile board and the commissioners court.  The board passed a resolution commending her work with the department and the resolution will be read into the minutes of both bodies.

            The resignation reminded a lot of old – time Corpus Christians that there was a time when practically all the charity in Nueces County was done from the front porch of Mrs. Gerhardt’s house on Taylor Street.

            That being true, it is difficult for many long – time residents to believe that Mrs. Gerhardt has been a paid official of the county for a matter of slightly less than seven years.

Wins Leniency for Youngsters

            Even Mrs. Gerhardt isn’t quite sure just when she ceased being an unpaid, ex officio probation officer and became a paid county employe.  The date hardly matters because she has actually done much of the work since shortly after the turn of the century.

            It was more than 40 years ago that Mrs. Gerhardt and her front porch became the focal point for work of the humane committee of  the City Federation of Women’s Clubs.

            Mrs. S. A. Early and Mrs. H. D. McDonald, both now deceased, and Mrs. Gerhardt formed the committee which administered Nueces County welfare activities in all their ramifications, performing the services that are now split up among a dozen agencies.

            Sick care, juvenile rehabilitation, probation work, child welfare, domestic relations, care for indigents and all the other social problems came in their sphere, and Mrs. Gerhardt was the one who first gained courage to demand leniency from county judges and snatch offending youngsters out of jail.

            “The first time I recall going before a county judge concerned a little boy who had stolen a pistol and been thrown into jail,” Mrs. Gerhardt said.

‘On the Road to Hell’

            “His Sunday School teacher, Mrs. I. C. Tabor, got me to go see Judge Walter Timon about him.  The judge was a pretty stern man in those days.  I remember after I stated my business he turned to a bailiff and growled, ‘Bring down the prisoner.’

            “The ‘prisoner’, a blond, barefooted youngster about 10 years old and still in short pants, came in front of the judge with a big red rose in his hand.

            “The judge fairly bellowed, ‘Son, don’t you know you’re on the road to hell?’

            “The little boy answered nothing, and the judge turned to his bailiff.  ‘Release that boy to his mother and don’t let him come back.’  We never had a ‘repeat’ on that case, and I think the boy’s an engineer on the Tex – Mex Railroad now.”

Grand Title But no Salary

            After that Mrs. Gerhardt worked more and more with the various county judges and recalls the late Judge Nat Benton as one of the most cooperative.  A high point in her unofficial career came when the late Judge Hugh Sutherland offered her the position of “juvenile judge.”

            “There wasn’t any salary attached and the title was too grandiose, so I told his I’d keep on doing the work without being a judge,” she said.

            Methods of care for the unfortunate were often primitive in the earlier days of Mrs. Gerhardt’s work.  She recalls a time when an entire family came down with tuberculosis and the problem of arranging transportation for them to Kerrville without the necessary funds fell her lot.

            We begged a wagon, a team of mules and some food from Corpus Christi residents, and one day the whole family started off behind the mules for the Kerrville hills.  They made it all right,” she said.

Took Girls Into Her Home

            Many of the girls who went wrong went right into Mrs. Gerhardt’s home.  Others were taken to the Home of the Good Shepherd, a mission home and training school in San Antonio.

            “Mostly what was needed was just personal contact and guidance,” Mrs. Gerhardt recalls.  “In those days the town was small, there weren’t so many cases of delinquency and you could cope with each one personally.”

            The front – porch welfare work of the women’s clubs was supplemented in the middle 1930s when Mrs. J. B. Galbreath, widow of the late sheriff, was appointed county probation officer after her husband’s death.  Mrs. Gerhardt carried on as her unpaid assistant and substituted for her when she became ill.

            When Mrs. Galbreath left to accept another position and Joe D. Browning became county judge, Mrs. Gerhardt finally went on the payroll.  For about two years she did all of the work of the department, as her predecessor had.  She had no office, no secretary, a small salary and no car allowance.

Husband was Publisher

            Mush of her work was still from her front porchby long since moved to 1005 Furman Avenue, where she still lives.

            Four years ago the county juvenile department was formed with N. O. Kennedy as chief probation officer and Mrs. Gerhardt in charge of work with girls and smaller boys.  For the past year, since Herman E. Krimmel has been head of the department, most of Mrs. Gerhardts work has been out in the neighborhoods with housewives who fight because their children fight or because someone’s dog chewed the laundry on the clothes line or from any of the other situations that arise in crowded areas.

            Despite her long service among the unfortunate, Mrs. Gerhardt has not confined her life to the one activity.

            Coming here as a young girl 50 years ago from Creston, Iowa, she first taught school at old Nuecestown.  One of her first outside activities was to organize the first young people’s church group in Corpus Christi.

            She taught for only three years, however, before she was married to the late John B. Hardwicke, editor of The Texas Sun, a weekly newspaper here.  When her husband died, she continued to publish the paper for three or four years.  Her sons, John and Arlington, she recalls, sold the papers she put out.

Managing Editor of Times

            Later she took another fling at the newspaper business when she became managing editor of The Times around 1922.  The Times was owned by the late W. E. Pope at the time.

            “Mr. Pope and I had political differences and I quit after a year,” Mrs. Gerhardt said.  “He wouldn’t let me publish as much about my candidate for governor as he published about his favorite.”

            About 10 years ago Mrs. Gerhardt took to the air on Corpus Christi’s first radio station, KGFI.  She conducted a woman’s hour for more than five years.

            “I got into a campaign to clean up some of Corpus Christi’s slums while I had that program, and I really think it did some good.”

            Between times Mrs. Gerhardt was remarried, reared her two sons and kibitized on the rearing of six grandchildren.  One son, John, and his family reside here while Arlington lives in Detroit.

            Besides, she has been interested for many years in the collection of early American glassware, particularly the cranberry glass, and in a number of other hobbies.

            And always there have been her “cases,” the people who call on Mrs. Gerhardt for advice, assistance or just consolation.

            “Why, I’m in the second generation on some of the juveniles.  There is one family from which the juvenile department has had at least one member on its rolls for the past 40 years.  Everywhere I go I see the familiar faces of youngsters who have outgrown their wildness and have straightened out.”

            Mrs. Gerhardt has left the county probation department, but it’s unlikely that after 40 years the problems won’t continue to roll in to her front porch.