roger.pape Site Admin
Joined: 17 Mar 2009 Posts: 414 Location: Liverpool, NY
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Posted: Mon Oct 03, 2011 7:17 am Post subject: Adolph Frerking’s Toolbox |
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Adolph Frerking was the youngest of the four Frerking brothers who immigrated to the U. S. with their uncle Friedrich Dierking in 1837 on the ship Burmah. Adolph was only 12 years old at the time. It is a bit surprising that he was allowed to make that voyage; however, he was in the company of his older brothers and uncle. There is no record of him being confirmed back in Germany.
After arriving in America, the group initially lived in St. Louis, MO. As is recorded in various histories, Friedrich Dierking was the first of the German immigrants to settle in the Concordia area several years later. However, Adolph remained in St. Louis for a number of years. He became an apprentice carpenter and continued this trade until he married Anna Maria Baumeister on Sept. 26, 1848. He and Anna Maria were married in Immanuel Lutheran Church in St. Louis, a daughter church of C. F. W. Walther’s Trinity Lutheran Church in downtown St. Louis (the original Lutheran church in that city). An older brother, Otto Georg (“Scharze”), was married to his first wife Dorothea Tschirping by Rev. Walther at Trinity about that same time. [Note. This is a deliberate tie-in to the 200th anniversary of Walther’s birth being celebrated this month.]
Shortly after their marriage, Adolph and Anna Maria moved to Lafayette County to be with the rest of the family in that area. He purchased a farm southwest of present day Concordia with his earnings as a carpenter. Adolph probably brought his tool box with him because he continued to do carpentry work on the side. He built coffins for a number of people through the years. One of the Frerking family legends is that, when someone in the area died, the tools in Adolph’s toolbox would rattle. I have never heard what happened to that toolbox after Adolph died. |
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