Carel Geische is a dishonest man who takes advantages of his neighorbors and shirkes his duties as a father. He is proud of his pioneer family name. He left his first wife in dire cicumstances as a single mother and when his circumstances became very good did nothing in the way of support for his child. Didn't even see his daughter except to run into her in the town. Willow did not handle this abandonment well, she started cutting herself. He remarried got a big house on the hill inherited stepsons, Justin and Jordan. Was a big man in town. But Willow thought differently "The simple story was he got rich buying and selling something that really wasn't his: the very history of Gillespie County."