Helen "Shatzie" Stieler Crouch was born January 30, 1924, at the Stieler Hill Ranch in Comfort. She attended St. Mary's Hall in San Antonio and the University of Texas at Austin, where she was a Pi Beta Phi and member of the Bit and Spur Riding Club.

Returning to the ranch in Comfort, she married John "Hondo" Crouch, and was president of the Garden Club and Literary Social Club. Moving to their ranch in Fredericksburg, Shatzie was mother of four, a rancher, Girl Scout leader, and taught Mexican folk dancing at the school.

In 1960, as president of the Gillespie County Historical Society, she accomplished the publishing of "Pioneers in God's Hills, Vol. I", and was an activist in the new idea of saving Fredericksburg's old pioneer buildings. She developed the library at the Vereins Kirche into Fredericksburg's first accredited state library and was instrumental in restoring the old Alfred Giles Courthouse into a new library.

She and her husband Hondo taught and worked at Camp Longhorn (1957 - 1963) in Burnet, and later developed and worked at their own Camp Champions (1969 - 1975) at Marble Falls.

ln 1970 she and Hondo bought the antique town of Luckenbach, Texas, with the idea of turning it into a living museum. Her business for over 30 years was restoring Texas primitive furniture and Model T Ford cars at her pioneer building. the Rumpel Kammer. In 2000, she was recipient of the Texas Star Award from the state for her historical restoration work. She said, "By placing the symbols of our heritage in homes, museums and libraries, we can continue to feel the charm of the past and the spirit of the people who worked so hard to tame this land.

She was a devout member of the Republican Party and NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness). In 2014, she received the Pioneer Spirit Award from the Gillespie Historical Society.

Shatzie is preceded in death by her parents Adolf Stieler and Dora Neunhoffer Stieler, her husband, Hondo Crouch, her brother Gene Stieler, son Kerry Stieler Crouch and grandson Ren Patterson.

She is survived by her daughter Becky Crouch Patterson; son John Russell "Juan" Crouch; daughter Cris Crouch Graham and husband Colonel John Graham; niece Sandra Stieler Lane of France. Survivors also include grandchildren Kit and Sky Patterson, Colt Crouch, Alice Lindsay Welder, Captain John Graham, USAF, and Ernest and Daphne Crouch of Plano; 13 great-grandchildren, as well as many friends and admirers of the Texas Hill Country. Anyone who knew Shatzie can attest to her legacy of hard work, compassion, humility and generosity.

Helen Stieler Crouch, known affectionately as Shatzie, embodied the true pioneer spirit of the Texas Hill Country. To understand her sincere labors for preservation in Texas over the past fifty years is to know her authentic legacy. She was a fourth-generation Texan, whose famity, Gottlieb Stieler (Oranienbaum) and William Neunhoffer (Wuerttemberg) emigrated from Germany In the 1850s. Known as the "freethinkers," these immigrants were among Comfort's first fifty families. All of Shatzie's ancestors and their families contributed greatly, both politically and agriculturally, as public servants and ranchers, to the development of Kerr, Kendall, Real, and Gillespie counties.

Shatztie's paternal great-grandparents, Caspar Real (Duesseldorf) and Emile Schreiner (Alsace, France), sister of Captain Charles Schreiner, brought the first sheep to Kerr County. Shatzie's maternal great-grandfather, Adolph Rosenthal (Frankfurt), was  a  surveyor  for  Sam Houston  and

Comfort's first school teacher. Her father, Adolf Stieler, known as the "Angora Goat King of

America" in the forties, gave generously to create highways, auctions, wool warehouses, and land Improvements that helped develop the early Texas Hill Country. Dora Neunhoffer, Shatzie's mother, a well-read, cultured woman, t:aught school In Sisterdale. Shatzle's uncle, Dr. Victor Keidel, was from three generations of Fredericksburg first doctors, all educated In Germany, His wife, Clara  Keidel (nee Stieler), started  the Gillespie County  Historical  Society and Fredericksburg's first library from her own book collection.

A celebration of life will take place at a later date.