Hermann Friederich Heinrich Schlador, known in America as F. H. Schlador, was born February 27, 1817 in Germany. In Nov 1842 F. H. Schlador married Julie von der Nahmer, with whom he had two children; Adelheid, born in 1843 and Hugo, born in 1845. F. H. left Germany in 1845 and arrived in Galveston in the Republic of Texas on November 25 of that same year. He traveled to Comal County and became a resident of the area.
In March of 1848, Hermann Seele, clerk of the District Court of Comal County, published a notice in the Austin Democrat, indicating that F. H. Schlador was requesting a divorce from his wife Julie, a subject of the Kingdom of Prussia, alleging abandonment. At some point between the date of this notice and the year 1850, F. H. married Comal County resident Franziska Wiedenfeld, daughter of Wilhelm and Henrietta Wiedenfeld. F. H. and Franziska made their home in New Braunfels, Texas until 1852, when they, their infant daughter Ida, and Franziska's brother Theodore Wiedenfeld and his family moved to an area on Cypress Creek near the Guadalupe River in what was then Bexar County, near the present town of Comfort, Texas. Here the Schladors and Wiedenfelds established their homes, where Franziska bore four more children: William in 1853, Samuel in 1855, Theodore in 1857 and Magdalena in 1863. Magdalena married Los Angeles "Times" editor Harry Chandler in 1889, and died of complications from childbirth in 1892 in California.
Between 1862 and 1867, the F.H. Schlador family moved from Comfort to Bandera, Texas, a small town on the Medina River, where they owned a cypress shingle mill for several years. In 1870, the mill was seriously
damaged by flood waters, and totally destroyed by floods in 1900. By that time the Schlador family was gone, except for daughter Ida and son William. Ida married J. P. Heinen and remained in Texas...William joined the rest of the family out west at a later date.
According to a story written by a Heinen grandson, the call to move west had come to F. H. after the family home on Mason Creek in Bandera County washed away during a flood, taking with it $800.00 in twenty-dollar gold pieces, the result of the sale of some cattle. The 1880 United States Federal Census finds the Schlador family in Oregon, with F. H.'s occupation listed as hotel keeper in the town of Silverton. Schlador Street in Silverton attests to the importance of the family in the early history of that community.
In June of 1886, a "Notice to Creditors" appeared in the Los Angeles Times newspaper concerning the estate of F. H. Schlador, deceased. Daughter Magdalena is named as executrix. This is the last mention of F. H. Schlador which can be found. His exact date of death is unknown. A written family history indicates that F. H. was buried in Old Calvary Cemetery. It is assumed he was among the graves relocated to New Calvary cemetery. Franziska Wiedenfeld Schlador died in Los Angeles in 1920. Her ashes are interred on daughter Magdalena's grave in Evergreen Cemetery.