Hi, Wanda -  This is Judy DeMoss again, with another Kordzik inquiry.  Your posting of my Louis Kordzik inquiry  lead me to find Louis  Kordzik in  the 1870  Census for  Fort Stockton, Presidio,  and his death record in the Fredericksburg Kirchen buch , so maybe this time  will help again
 
 This is about Otto Kordzik, born in 1856  in Prussia, about whom we do know a lot, and I am in contact with his great grand daughter and grand daughter, but there are still some things that are not cleared up about the early years after he immigrated in 1860.
 
.   Otto, widowed twice,  and  2-year old daughter Gretchen Josephine were on the 1900  El Paso Census.    After Otto lost his two young wives in childbirth,   Otto decided to  "get away" at Cloudcroft and High Rolls in Otero County,  New Mexico,  prefering to  live  almost like a hermit, and trading with the Indians.    The Census pages for 1910 and 1920 in New Mexico say that he, and most all his neighbors, were farmers.
 
 His daughter Josephine went to live in the San Angelo Nimitz Hotel  with her Aunt Theresa Kordzik Nimitz and Uncle Louis Nimitz.  Otto's son Felix always lived with the family of his mother's sister in Fredericksburg and San Antonio.
 
 Otto was on the 1930 Census in Comfort, Kerr County in the Altenheim nursing home, where he died in 1935, and he was buried in Fredericksburg.
 
 I cannot find Otto on Census pages for 1870 and 1880  -  so where was he?
 
Several things make me wonder if perhaps Otto could have been living at Fort Concho or San Angela  during some of that time, where there was no 1870 Census .
 
 He and Emilie Schildknecht were married  in 1882,.
 
Researcher Betty Varner in San Angelo sent me a copy of an 1885 San Angelo land record  where Otto and  wife Emilie  sold two pieces of land  to Theresa and Ernest Nimitz  for $150.
 
 And then, yesterday, I read  the  Handbook of Texas sketch about the early days of Fort Concho, paying particular interest  to this comment:
     "Civilian stonemasons and carpenters from the  Fredericksburg area were employed in the early years of construction of the fort buildings."
 
And also this comment about  building the Fort  from the  Fort Concho Museum description:
        "Most stone structures are built with pecan-wood beams and rafters by skilled German craftsmen from Fredericksburg."
 
So I would like to ask you:   Do you  have any ideas about whether or not Otto could have been one of those skilled craftsmen from Fredericksburg, and are there any lists of those craftsmen where he might be listed?     I  do not know anything about  whether or not Otto may have had  those skills. Any help or suggestions you  have would be very much appreciated.  
 
Thank you so much for all your good work,
                  Judy DeMoss   Jujudemoss@aol.com <Jujudemoss@aol.com>
                  6231 Valley Forge
                  Houston, Texas 77057