Friedrike "Freda" Sophie Louisa Trenkman Ziegenfuss and children
I wish I had known my great-great-grandmother, Freda Ziegenfuss. She was
born in 1846 in Prussia. From the stories passed down, she was a strong woman.
No record has yet been found of her exact birthplace or of her marriage to my
great-great-grandfather, Gottlieb Ziegenfuss. Family tradition says her full
name may have been Friedrike Sophie Louise (or Louisa) Trenkman.
Freda married Gottlieb, who was twenty-six years
older than she was. Around 1869, based on the birth of their first known child,
Louisa, in 1870, Freda would have been about twenty-two years old.
Gottlieb had been married before. On January 14,
1844, he married Dorothee Caroline Wilhelmine Hildebrandt in Wernigerode, at
St. Sylvestri Church (Evangelische Kirche zu Sylvestri und Georgii
Wernigerode). No death record has been found for Dorothee, and no children from
that marriage are known.
Freda and Gottlieb’s children born in Prussia
were: Louisa (1870), Otto (1872), Benno John (1875), Bruno Hugo (1876),
Mathilda Augustine “May” (1878), Ernst Rufe (1879), and Helene Olivia “Lena”
(1882). Lena was my great-grandmother.
In 1885, Gottlieb brought Freda and the family
from Weferlingen to the United States. They left Hamburg on August 5 and
arrived in New York on August 18, 1885. Lena was three years old. From there,
they traveled to Arlington, Texas.
Family stories say that Freda and Gottlieb had
been sending money to a friend in America to buy land and prepare a house for
them. When they arrived in Arlington, land had been purchased, but no house had
been built. Gottlieb was sixty-four years old. The family says he “sat down and
just slowly died.” On January 20, 1890, he died in Tarrant County, Texas, heartbroken
and devastated.
I often think about Freda. She had been in her
new country only four years. She now had eight children. Rosie was born in 1888
after their arrival. Her husband was gone. I imagine she worked hard to put
food on the table, and that the older boys found whatever work they could
nearby to help the family survive.
Sometime between Gottlieb’s death in January
1890 and 1895, Freda moved her children to Eastland, in Eastland County, Texas.
Why did she move to Eastland? Family stories – yes, another one to add to all
the others – the man who had taken their money and not built a house for
Gottlieb in Arlington, lived in Eastland County. Truth? I’m not sure. I do know
what happened next in Freda’s story.
On August 14, 1895, she married another
Prussian-born man, Friedrich (Frederick) August Grӓefe. It was not a good
marriage. All of the children except little Rosie were forced out of the home.
They went to work and lived with other families, or perhaps on their own. The
oldest son, Otto, would have been twenty-two.
My great-grandmother Lena was thirteen. She
lived with a family and helped care for their children. During that time, she
met my great-grandfather, James Andrew Cauble. They were married on December 9,
1897, in Eastland County, Texas. According to family stories, Lena taught the
cowboy “Jim” Cauble how to read and write.
Freda remained in an unhappy marriage. In the
1900 U.S. Census, she appears in Justice Precinct 4, Eastland County, Texas,
with Frederick “Greofe,” age fifty-six, head of household, his son Friedrich,
age twenty-four, and her daughter “Rossa,” age twelve.
By the 1910 census, Freda had left Mr. Grӓefe.
She was living in Wichita Falls, Wichita County, Texas, in the household of her
son Benjamin (Benno John), age twenty-eight and single. Freda is listed as
widowed, and twenty-two-year-old Rosa is also in the household.
On February 3, 1920, when the census was taken
in Cement City, Dallas County, Texas, Freda, age seventy-five, was living in
the household of her son-in-law, Darling D. “Kensey” (Kenney), with his
wife—her daughter Rosie—and her son Ben.
About a month later, on March 5, 1920, Freda
died in Wichita Falls, Texas. She was buried in Riverside Cemetery in Wichita
Falls.
After leaving Mr. Grӓefe, she lived the rest
of her life using the name Ziegenfuss.
I
admire Freda. Being widowed in a new country with so many children and
struggling to survive must have been incredibly hard. Then to marry again and
find herself in another painful situation, especially one that separated her
from her children, makes me sad.
Freda, I wish I could tell you that you persevered and raised children who went
on to have families that would make you – and Gottlieb – proud!
Revis
