This is a picture of the Gruetzmacher home at 1910 Avenue N in Galveston, Texas, circa 1975. At that time, it was a rooming house in a crummy part of town. Then again, at that time, most of Galveston seemed to be pretty crummy.

The Gruetzmacher family lived at this address from around 1890. Originally occupied by Paul Louis Hermann Eugen Gruetzmacher and his wife Augusta (nee Altmann), along with their children Clara Elizabeth (1877-1937), Matilda Elizabeth (1879-1963), Augusta 1880-1926, Pauline (1881-?), Emily (1882-after 1950), Otto Henry (1885-1924), Paul (1887-1909), Edward (1893-1900), Arthur (1896-1905), Edith (1899-1974), and Octavia (1905-1953).

Otto and Clara were the last Gruetzmacher's living in the house, in around 1921, according to the Galveston City Directory for that year.

The house was one of the few houses in Galveston that survived the 1900 Storm. Dad always told the legend of his grandfather Paul drilling holes into the floors of the house so as to allow the rising waters to flood into the house rather than raise the house off its foundation, which is what actually did happen to many of the houses in town.