San Antonio author Celia Hayes described the background for writing her Adelsverein trilogy about the German settlement of Fredericksburg to the A.C. Jones and Friends Reading Discussion Group June 8 at the home of Al and Kay Past.

The group had read “Adelsverein: the Gathering,” the first book in the trilogy, which portrayed the decision of a fictitious family to leave Germany, the conditions on the immigrant ship, the arrival at Indianola, and the continued hardships they suffered as they established their home in Fredericksburg, with little support from the society of German noblemen who had organized the Adelsverein to encourage immigration to 19th century Texas.

“The Sowing” continues the story through the Civil War and the hard times experienced by the German immigrants who were generally opposed to slavery and the Confederacy. “The Harvesting” depicts the Reconstruction period and the beginning of the Texas cattle drives.

Local retired lawyer Richard Rudeloff was especially interested in the book because his great-grandfather came to Texas with the Adelsverein in the mid-1800s.

With a college degree in English and a love of reading, Hayes decided to try her hand at writing when she retired after 20 years in the U.S. Air Force.

Having been stationed in Japan, Greenland, Greece, Spain and Germany, she returned to the western part of the U.S. with a new perspective. “On a trip to Ogden, Utah, we passed through Beaver Valley, a huge stretch of land where at that time the only signs of human influence were the highway and the power lines. We couldn’t help but think of how amazing this would be to Europeans, who are accustomed to seeing villages, castles, ruins of ancient structures and people along every road they take,” Hayes said.

Her first novel, “To Truckee’s Trail,” grew out of her interest in a relatively unknown adventure on the California emigrant trail, the Stephens-Townsend Party of 1844.

Because she had done extensive background research on the 19th century American frontier in order to write that book, she decided her next historical fiction project would be set in the same time period.

“Since I was living in San Antonio, I thought about local history and realized that little had been written about the settlement of Fredericksburg,” she explained.

She and daughter Jean, who accompanied her to Beeville for the discussion group, spent a lot of time in Fredericksburg, especially in the Nimitz Museum, researching 19th century life in the settlement.

And they came to Beeville for one aspect of the research: firing a black powder pistol. Local author Al Past invited Hayes to the Past ranch for that historical experience.

Hayes had “met” Past through the Independent Authors’ Guild, an Internet group which Hayes set up some three years ago to facilitate the sharing of marketing ideas for authors who had either used “publish on demand” companies or small publishers to print their books.

“The IAG is trying to combat the generally held notion that all ‘publish on demand’ books are terrible, badly written, and not worth reading,” Hayes explained. She and Past assist another IAG author, Floyd Orr, in reviewing worthwhile, high quality POD books for www.PODBRAM.blogspot.com, a website which publicizes the best of the independently published books.

“Some of the IAG authors have gone independent after getting fed up with the practices of traditional publishers,” she added. “POD is rapidly becoming an alternative to the old way of publishing books.”

Hayes used some of Past’s local landscape photography for the Adelsverein trilogy book covers, with some artistic editing applied.

The reading group’s next selection is Patty Lacy’s “An Irishwoman’s Tale,” written by the daughter-in-law of Beevillians Clyde and Lena Mary Lacy, and the discussion date is June 30. Anyone interested in joining that session may call 358-2491 for more details.