Folklife Festival moves forward as it looks back

To start a new life in Texas, Dave Goeke 's ancestors had to leave loved ones behind. They fought a ship-wide outbreak of cholera. On they sailed, back in the 1850s, in search of freedom to speak their own language and practice their own religion.

Their determination to make a better life for their children is a driving force behind Goeke's efforts year after year — decade after decade — to dress up in traditional knickers and hawk egg noodles, a staple of the Wends of Texas, at the weekend-long Texas Folklife Festival.

Who are the Wends?

“Most people have never heard of them,” says Goeke, a 62-year-old salesman and native Texan. “Very few families have 100 percent Wendish blood anymore.”

The Texas Wends descended from a small Slavic group from Lusatia, an area of eastern Germany.

In honor of those ancestors, each year Goeke joins more than three dozen other ethnic groups—from the Greek to the Filipinos to the Belgian — in hosting the Texas Folklife Festival, a celebration of food, music, dance, crafts and costumes that celebrates its 40th edition this year.

Fifteen of the more than 40 ethnic and cultural groups participating at this year's fest — Friday through Sunday on the grounds of the Institute of Texan Cultures downtown — have been part of all 40 festivals.

“We have become the conduit to introduce all these little groups to the larger community,” says festival director Jo Ann Andera , who has led the event for 30 years.

Back in 1972, O.T. Baker led the first Texas Folklife Festival after returning from the Smithsonian's 1968 American Folklife Festival in Washington, D.C. He once told a reporter he had believed “we could do one for Texas much better than they had done.”

Andera, the daughter of Lebanese immigrants, performed that first year as a belly dancer. Her sister made and sold tabbouleh, a salad of bulgur, tomatoes, parsley, lemon juice and mint — and four decades later, she still does.

“Those first years, nobody knew how big it was going to be,” says Andera's sister, Kathy White .

In those early years, incandescent bulbs dangled over flatbed trailers serving as stages. Newspaper stories and old-fashioned word-of-mouth generated turnouts that have fluctuated from 50,000 to 90,000, depending on factors such as weather and how well the San Antonio Spurs are doing in the playoffs.

Today, festival details are disseminated via the Web and Facebook. And this year, the institute launched a new outreach effort: an interactive video-conference with more than 1,800 schoolchildren at 37 sites across Texas and one in South Carolina.

good time to travel to san antonio for vacation (drive)?

Well it really depends if you like hot weather or cold weather. If you hate hot weather then I would suggest to get a web cam. J/K no but really its really really hot and humid down here during the summer. Right now (Oct) the weather is really nice. Its rained just a little last night but at least there is a cool front so its really nice outside. Another good times to come out would be in Late Feb, Mar, Apr,Oct, and Nov. In Dec. and Jan. it starts getting cold and sometimes icy. If your looking to tour san Antonio a little April would be a great month because that month is when we have our annual fiesta event. We have a huge carnival, music, food, and parades. I think anyone who likes to have fun will really love this event. Hope you have a good time visiting your daughter.

Add your own answer in the comments!

The San Antonio Riverwalk The summer is hot no getting around that. Fall is nice it starts to cool off a little and you have a different feeling in the air. Winter, well some people say SAT never really has a winter. There is no snow, but it can get cold and rather nasty in December and January. There can be sleet and it can freeze making it difficult to move about the city.

A lot would depend on the weather where you are coming from and what you have to drive through to get there.

Good luck and enjoy your trip.

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