Author Description

Most of my first 25 years were spent within 50 miles of Strawberry Point, Iowa, where my Fredrick/Frederick/Friedrich paternal ancestors arrived from Germany in the 1850s, via New York City, upper New York state, Michigan and Ohio. As they said then, “The apples did not fall far from the trees.” For about 100 years, they formed a tightly knit community of language, Lutheran education and tradition, and rural, agricultural living. A communal spirit of helping each other was the glue. Lutheran cemeteries in and near Strawberry Point have large contingents of our ancestors. By the end of the 1950s, most of the descendants were moving westward and beyond. I have received written and learned from oral histories, notably from my Aunt Evelyn (Fredrick) Elliot; my Dad, Walter Fredrick Jr; Evelyn and Walter’s cousin Ray Nodurft; and, Mabelle (Feulner) Somboracz, my Grandpa Walter A.H. Fredrick’s niece. Organization of the material in this book begins with summary of my family line going back to 1667, followed by an educated guess of how and why our line came to leave Germany, ending with individuals’ biographic and anecdotal information I have gained and been given in my lifetime.