Rosalea C. House
Rosalea Conner House was born in Rosedale, Okla., on Oct. 21, 1910, and was glorified in Christ Jesus on Sept. 21, 2009, at Kirkwood Manor in New Braunfels, at the age of 98. Her parents were George Wesley Conner and Annie Page Conner.
She is survived by sisters Phrona Green and Jean Moore, of Gonzales. She is also survived by her daughter, Mary Anne Hollmig of New Br
aunfels; son and daughter-in-law, George and Stephanie House, of northern Caldwell County; grandson, Craig and Vicki Hollmig, granddaughter, Cheryl and Bob Warnecke; great-granddaughter Alissa and Thor Thornhill, all of New Braunfels; great-grandson Dr. Tyler and Ashley Hollmig, of Dallas; great-grandsons, Grant and Derek Warnecke and; great-great-grandson, William Barrett Thornhill.
Rosalea eloped from her parent’s home about three months before her 17th birthday in July 1927 to marry a Texas traveling man – three years her elder – named George House. Her husband preceded her in death in October 1989.
The couple spent their early years near Jal, N.M. for George’s job of geophysical oil exploration. They then moved to Houston, where George’s family lived and where Mary Anne was born. At the beginning of World War II the couple relocated to Freeport, Texas, where Rosalea was a homemaker and George staffed the Instrument Department of Dow Chemical.
Rosalea and her husband must have been among the first Houstonians to relocate to New Braunfels when, after years of visiting and camping along the Comal river, they moved there in 1948. Their first vocation involved copper and brass spinning in a shop they built on the corner of North Seguin and Zink Streets – now the location of their grandson’s engineering business.
They loaded their products and inventory of mugs and decorative wall plates into a station wagon and sold to retailers until the Korean War in 1950 interrupted their brass and copper supplies.
Rosalea and George reinvented their mutual vocations again when they established a quintessential Mom and Pop neighborhood grocery business in the somewhat expanded metal spinning shop. Their next child, George, Jr., was born on the day they received their first truckload of wholesale groceries from San Antonio.
As New Braunfels was still relatively small back then, it hadn’t acquired an H.E.B. or Safeway grocery store yet so the little venture of Rosalea and George thrived until the big box stores came around to this formerly Beauty Spot of Texas. They named their “mostly-picnic-supplies” retail store Stan Hollmig Drive-In, in honor and recognition of their son-in-law, a noted professional baseball player and Houston Astro scout.
Somewhere along the way the industrious couple added a kitchen with short orders, on premise beer license, fried chicken and an antique furniture gallery to their grocery business. Another vocational reinvention was looming on the horizon due to decreasing grocery sales to the new larger stores and Rosalea and George’s increasing interest in and collecting of local antiques so they reopened the Drive In as the ‘Antique Haus’ and bought a farm north of Gruene.
Rosalea was a 15 year member of Christ Presbyterian Church (PCA) in New Braunfels and the local Aggie Mothers Club. All who knew Rosalea were blessed by her sweet and gentle spirit. She was always thinking of others rather than herself. She loved the Lord and felt blessed that He gave her such a long and good life.
In lieu of flowers given in Rosalea’s memory, the family has requested any remembrance bequeathed to the charity of your choice or woundedwarriorproject.org.
Services were held on Thursday, Sept. 24, 2009, Christ Presbyterian Church and internment followed at Guadalupe Valley Memorial Park.
