Extracted from The Houston Chronicle (Houston, TX)
Monday, April 17, 2000

WALTER GILBERT RABENSBURG

WALTER GILBERT RABENSBURG, a 4th generation Texan, died in Austin, Texas at the age of 81 on April 14, 2000. He was born on September 10, 1918 in La Grange, Texas to Newton Joseph and Lillian Edna Speckels Rabensburg. At the age of 3, he and his family moved to Llano, Texas and then later to Austin. Walter was a long time employee of the State of Texas working until his retirement for the Department of Health. In his younger years, he was an avid sportsman enjoying tennis and fishing.

His loving wife, Joyce Purdett Lamb-Rabensburg of Austin, survives him along with her children by a previous marriage; his sister-in-law, R. Alene Buck Rabensburg of Houston, Texas; a niece, Barbara Gayle Rabensburg Hall-Herring of Austin; and a nephew, Aubrey Neale Rabensburg of Houston.

Walter Gilbert Rabensburg descends from a long list of early Texas German settlers who first made their homes in Harris, Bastrop, Colorado, and Fayette counties. The first of these ancestors to arrive came to Texas in 1834 before the Revolution and fought with the rebels at the Battle of San Jacinto in 1836. Other German family members arrived in the late 1840's and early 1850's settling primarily in Fayette and Bastrop counties. Early Texas surnames associated directly to Walter are Rabensburg, von Rosenberg, von Meerscheidt-von Hellessem, Ehlinger and Speckels. Other related surnames from the Fayette county area are Walter, Girndt and Heintze. One grandfather, Henry W. Speckels, served several terms as mayor of La Grange in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Walter Rabensburg was preceded in death by his parents, Newton and Lillian Speckels Rabensburg of Austin, Texas; a brother, Newton Joseph Rabensburg, Jr. of Midland, Texas; and another brother, Aubrey Henry Rabensburg of Houston.

A memorial service will be held in Austin, Texas, on Tuesday, April 18, 2000, at 1:00 p.m. at St. Lukes on the Lake.