Crowd gathers to celebrate Fly House’s centennial

A capacity crowd gathered at the Fly House last Saturday to celebrate the 100th birthday of the three-story house that was built by Frank Merriman Fly — a Gonzales businessman who achieved great success in many ventures.

Fly served as a sheriff, banker, justice of the peace and was a personal acquaintance of John Wesley Hardin.

According to the Handbook of Texas, Sheriff Fly helped save Gregorio Cortez from a lynch by locking himself in the cell at what is now the Jail Museum after Cortez had been found sentenced to 50 years for the murder of Fly’s former boss Sheriff Richard M. Glover. Fly took Cortez to the railroad station the next day and the pair traveled safely to San Antonio.

The conviction was later overturned on appeal.

Fly’s grandchildren returned to the house for the first time in decades Saturday night.

His granddaughter, Callie Schaefer Meyer Barnett was actually born in the house. Her mother — who was also named Callie after her mother— traveled to Gonzales from her home in Schulenburg so the family doctor could deliver her baby. But when delivery time came, so did an ice storm, so the doctor came to the Fly House and Callie arrived in a second floor bedroom at her grandfather’s house, rather than at the hospital.

During Saturday night’s event, Callie was quite amused by questions from her friends Jennifer Berliner and Gloria Villarreal about whether the room had changed much since her arrival.

“I wasn’t paying much attention to the decorating in those days,” she said.

Callie was the first grandchild born to Frank Merriman and Callie Fly, but she was soon joined by Bill Fly, Lamar Fly’s son and then her brother Phil Schaefer. They didn’t provide a complete genealogy during the Saturday night mixer, but they did share some interesting stories over cake in the kitchen over what was the family home and out on the porch as the evening cooled off.

“We lived in Schulenburg, but all the special occasions were here,” Callie said.

She is especially proud of her grandfather’s career at Gonzales State Bank.

“He worked hard to save the bank during the depression,” she said.

He also spent many years as a justice of the peace before retiring at age 95.

That may have been how Fly formed an acquaintance with another Gonzales resident that was mentioned in an article published in this newspaper on Sept. 28, 1961 — John Wesley Hardin.

After Hardin was released from prison he came to Gonzales to establish a law practice.

Phil Schaefer shared one family story that clearly was seared in his memory when it was told to him at a young age.

As a young child, Frances Fly had been sitting in the bedroom window above the driveway and — even though the screen was closed, she fell out of the window and down into the driveway.

Schaefer said the child suffered head injuries, but survived with no apparent disability.

“Grandmother’s hair turned white overnight,” Schaefer said. “She kept a beautiful head of white hair after that.”

Frank Fly was on the staff of the Gonzales State Bank from 1909 through the Great Depression. He served as Justice of the Peace from 1946 to 1962. He was a member of the Selective Service Board, the Red Cross, the County Fair Association, the Chamber of Commerce, the Good Roads Commission, the Gonzales School Board, and other bodies. He described himself as “a Methodist, a Mason, and a Democrat.” He married Stella Miller of Waelder in 1908, and they had five children. He died on July 13, 1962, at the age of 96, and was buried in the Gonzales Masonic Cemetery.