I am very happy to say that until this week this page has been known as "Various Texas Gerbics many of them Lost Gerbics". But now it has been renamed because all the Gerbic's in Texas seem to be descended from...
Marco Gerbic
b. Nov. 11, 1872, d. March 1952
Married: Emma (Roemer) Alberti b. Aug 1878, married ~1898
The Children:
Norma Jeanette Catherine Wilhemina
Louis John Gerbic b. March 27, 1906
Elise Emma b. 1909 d. Jan 1942
Marco Gerbic b. Nov. 1872. Age 27, born Austria, wife Emma b. Aug. 1878, age 21, born in Texas. 2 children, one dead. Daughter's name is unclear on census, born May 1900. Emma and Marco have been married 2 years. They can read/write/speak English. They rent their home on Galveston County, Texas. 1900 census.
M. Gerbic (male) b. 1873 in Austria, married at age 23. Daughter Elise b. 1909, Son Louis b. 1905. Owns home valued at $2,000, not a farm. M. Gerbic immigrated in 1890 and is naturalized, and not a veteran.
Year: 1930; Census Place: San Antonio, Bexar, Texas; Roll: T626_2295; Page: 3B; Enumeration District: 215; Image: 0530
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This is Marcus Gerbic's WWI draft card. It is very difficult to read but the important parts read that Marcus Gerbic who lives at 104 Rt. D-8 San Antonio, Texas. He is 45 years old and born November 11, 1872. He is white and a naturalized citizen. His nearest relative is his wife Emma Gerbic. He is medium of height and weight. He has dark brown eyes and hair. Note on Documents
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Here is a letter that I received this Christmas from the grandson of Marco. I think he had seen his name on the "Lost Gerbic" site and wanted to tell me that he wasn't "lost". Here is where I get the majority of information about Marco and his family.
I am Marco Louis Patrick Gilliam of San Antonio, born
3-17-37, grandson of Marco Gerbic who moved from Dalmatia to New York to
Galveston to San Antonio. He and his wife, Emma, and father-in-law, Louis
Alberti, originally of Germany, survived the 1900 hurricane and tidal surge at
Galveston. Emma's mother was the wife of Carl Roemer of Galveston.
Marco Gerbic had four children, Norma Jeanette Catherine Wilhemina, Marcolene
Nina, Louis John, and Elise Emma. Norma had one child, Beverly, in marriage to
Jim Jolley of Clarksville, Texas. Marcolene had no children. Louis John had
three daughters, Evelyn Claire, Johnette and Sue, in marriage to Evelyn Jones,
all born in San Antonio. Elise had one son, myself, born in San Antonio in
marriage with Newell Francis Gilliam of San Antonio. Marco Gerbic died in March
of 1952 and is buried beside his wife, Emma, who died in the late 1930s, and
daughter Elise, who died in January, 1942, in Mission Burial Park South in San
Antonio.
Marco Gerbic had a cousin named John, who came with him from Dalmatia and who died young in San Antonio. He is buried in the family plot in Mission Burial Park. Marco did not come to this country with a brother. John was his cousin. His last name was Misich.
Marco Gerbic was in the wholesale meat business with his father-in-law in Galveston. For a time a black cowboy worked with them around the Galveston stock yards. He was Jack Johnson, who later became heavyweight champion of the world. After his move to San Antonio around 1914, Marco established a meat packing house next to the San Antonio Union Stock Yards. He sold his business early in World War II and became a livestock buyer for other packing houses. He was known for his ability to guess the weight of a steer or hog by looking it over, pinching it, and poking it with his cane. They then would put the animal on the scales, and Marco's guess would be no more than a pound or two off.
Marco also owned a restaurant called the Four Seasons near what is now Romana Plaza in San Antonio, in partnership with a Matt Marcus. Marco loved to bring home personally selected and slaughtered meats, smoke them for eight or ten hours in a double brick pit behind his garage, then have friends from the Old Country over for barbecue, beer and games of pitch (shoot the moon) that went into the wee hours beneath the pecan trees in his back yard. At age 80 he would climb a ladder into his beloved pecan trees and knock the nuts down with his cane. He also grew plums, pears and limes and raised chickens, ducks and sheep on two city lots within San Antonio in the 1940s. Old cowboys from the stock yards would come around every Christmas, and Marco would take them back in the chicken yard by a pit used for burning trash, and give them a bottle of bourbon to pass around among themselves. Mister Gerbic was always good for Christmas cheer for broken down old cowboys, black and white. He loved his family and America more than anything else. He died of a massive heart attack at age 82, weighing close to 200 pounds.
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This is a letter from the granddaughter of Marco Gerbic, Johnette Gerbic, San Antonio, TX dated Sept. 1st, 1997
"Dear Susan,
So Sorry! I didn't write sooner. My grandfather Marco Gerbic and his brother from a small fishing town in Austria migrated to New York in the late 1800. He was 12 years. I do not know the exact year. His brother stayed in New York and he came to Galveston Texas then to San Antonio. He made his living as a meat packer and supplier. His son John Gerbic was my father. He died in 1980. Marco Gerbic had four children. My father had no sons to pass the Gerbic name. I took my maiden name when I divorced several years ago. I am sorry I am of no more help but I am trying to locate a family Bible that perhaps will supply me with more information. I will write if I can find it. Please keep me posted."
Johnette Gerbic, San Antonio Tx.
P.S. "I believe my grandfather had dropped some letters off the last name. It could have been Gerbick".
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Page updated July 1, 2005
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