Waco has been blessed with superb jewelers in its long history. But for Wacoans of a certain age, the mention of Fred Studer Co., Inc. Jewelers & Opticians is always followed by a smile or memory.
Friedrich “Fred” Studer and his sons Elbert, Leonard and Clarence operated Studer’s in downtown Waco for 60 years and it’s the classic story of an immigrant who bravely came to a new world — and America is the richer for it.
Born in 1860, Fred and his family left their native Germany, which was still reeling from multiple European wars, and settled in London. He was apprenticed to London’s prestigious Watch Makers Guild for five years, before immigrating to New York City in 1881. After several years in El Paso, Fred opened a jewelry and watch-making business in the small Texas town of Coleman. In February 1888, he married Myra Bell Harbour. Their sons Elbert, Leonard and Clarence and daughter Freddie Bell, were born in Coleman.
In 1895, the Studers moved yet again and founded Studer’s Jewelers at 508 Austin Avenue, where it became a beloved
Waco institution.
The Baylor University Institute for Oral History features several interviews with longtime Wacoans who reference Studer’s, including Oscar Emil Hessdoerfer, who saved for years to buy a diamond ring for his wife. He eventually chose a five-diamond ring at Studer’s at a cost of $225.
“I showed it to a lot of the customers in the store when they came [in],” Hessdoerfer said. “That’s another thing — your customers were friends, almost like relations. That’s the way it was. And then I gave it to [my wife] and she was overjoyed.”
In addition to watchmaking and jewelry, Fred threw himself into the world of Waco social and service organizations, including the Elks, Knights of Pythias, Odd Fellows and the Sons of Hermann. Another Oral History interviewee, well-known Waco Mason Robert Lee Lockwood, said that Fred was invaluable in his acceptance into Masonry.
“He would repair watches and teach Masonic work while he was working,” Lockwood recalled. “I know many times if I had an hour during the day, I’d go by his store and run over the work with him. I learned a great deal like that. He was very, very helpful in teaching the work.”
In addition to instructing Lockwood and other Masons, Fred taught his sons the intricate arts of watchmaking and crafting fine jewelry. When they were old enough, Elbert, Leonard and Clarence all entered the trade.
Perhaps because he was originally an outsider himself, Fred had a soft spot for society’s outcasts. During the heyday of the legalized prostitution in Waco — the so-called Waco Reservation centered around Second Street in the 1900s-1920s — the women working in the brothels were banned from shopping or even appearing in public. A few merchants allowed the women to shop for goods at inflated prices after hours from an enclosed carriage.
But in an interview with Professor Margaret Davis 50 years later, son Leonard said that Fred allowed him to “take samples into the Reservation, discreetly and by night, upon request from the women.”
Such was Fred’s skill at watchmaking that he was soon contracted by the famed Elgin company to craft his own line of watches. Surviving watches with “Fred Studer Co., Waco, Texas” engraved on the back, some from as early as 1900, are rare and expensive collectables today.
Fred also trained his half-brother, Ed Bauerle, who opened a branch of Studer’s in Fort Worth. In 1917, Ed opened his own competing jewelry store in Waco at 728 Austin Avenue.
In 1925, Elbert Studer purchased a jewelry store in Carlsbad, New Mexico, and moved his family there. According to legendary Waco social reporter Kate Edmond, Waco society hosted a gala farewell party for the family in February of that year.
But Elbert returned to Waco in the 1940s, when Fred at last retired from Studer’s Jewelry and turned the business over to his three sons.
In addition to Studer’s, Leonard also immersed himself in Masonic life; a later newspaper article called him one of the state’s “best-known Masons.” He was treasurer of the Grand Lodge of Texas for 18 years, a master of Waco Lodge No. 92, A.F. and A.M.; past priest of Waco Chapter No. 45, Royal Arch Masons; member of the Councils of Royal and Select Masters; Waco Commandery, Knights Templar; Waco Scottish Rites bodies and was a 33rd degree inspector general, among other honors and positions.
Fred and Myra Bell celebrated their 60th anniversary with an open house at their home at 1309 North Fifth in February of 1948. The couple observed their annual ceremony of winding the priceless “century clock,” that Fred had given his wife as an anniversary present 45 years earlier.
When Fred, then 89, suffered a “mild stroke” at their new home at 2121 Parrott Avenue in May 1949, it was front page news. He never fully recovered and the pioneering Waco jeweler died on August 21, 1949. He had been oldest member of the Sons of Hermann in the United States and accolades poured in from across the United States.
In April 1955, the brothers reluctantly shuttered Studer’s Jewelry at 508 Austin following a series of health issues for both Elbert and Clarence. “It’s come to the case I have to quit,” the 59-year-old Clarence told The Waco Times-Herald. “I guess the doctors know best. I might start a pick up and delivery watch shop of my own at my home on Lake Waco. There aren’t too many men left anymore who really know watches like Leonard learned from Dad.”
Elbert and Clarence also noted that they had been the “official timepiece inspectors” for the Katy and Cotton Belt railroads for years — monthly checking the watches of 150 employees.
In August 1955, Leonard and his wife Anna (known as “Topsy”), who lived for decades at 2803 Reuter, opened Leonard Studer Jewelers at 814 Austin Avenue. He quietly closed the business in 1960.
Elbert, who died in June 1957, had also been lifelong Mason.
Fred’s widow, Myra Bell, died three years later. At her passing, she had been the oldest living member of Central Christian Church in Waco and a member of the Eastern Star since 1919. Until her death, she continued the tradition of winding their cherished calendar clock every Sunday morning.
Leonard died on February 12, 1970, after a brief illness. He was 78. Sister Freddie Bell Studer Waddell died on February 8, 1974.
And when brother Clarence, the last surviving sibling, died on July 4, 1974, it signaled the final chapter in the story of a beloved Waco family and institution.
(All photographs courtesy of the Texas Collection at Baylor University)
