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Parents of Albert Block
Parents of Ursula Block

Albert and Ursula Block

By W. T. Block

Will Block's parents were Albert Joachim Bernhard Block (b. September 3, 1840 in Berlin-d. Aug. 18, 1893 in Port Neches) and

Ursula Matilda Smith (Schmidt, b. Johnson Bayou, LA May 6, 1849-d. Port Neches on January 3, 1914). They were married in Orange, Texas on November 15, 1866.

When Will Block, Sr. was ten months old, his parents Albert and Ursula Block, moved back to Port Neches, and they were the only Blocks who remained there after all the others moved to Orange in 1882. In 1880 Grandpa Albert Block owned horses, cattle, and hogs, and he made 150 gallons of sugar cane syrup that year, so Will and Martin Block were well-trained in syrup making from their early years.

In 1871 Albert and Ursula Block moved into the former Christian Gentz home, which was the same house that I, Rosa, Nell, Otis and Alta were born in. The land upon which the house stood belonged to Pavell’s widow, Sophia Pavell Picklaps of Galveston. In 1876 Albert Block bought 100 acres of land from her for which he paid $5.00 an acre. In the same year, he bought at a sheriff’s sale on the court house steps, an adjacent tract of 100 acres south of Port Neches Avenue, which he got for his bid of $5.00, or five cents an acre, the cheapest land sale since the Louisiana Purchase. In 1876, following the end of Reconstruction, Albert Block was elected constable for Precinct 2, Grigsby’s Bluff, and on a printout of the postmasters of Port Neches and Grigsby’s Bluff, Albert Block was postmaster of Grigsby’s Bluff when he died in 1893.