Cards for Anna Christine & Frederik

These two cards are the last of the postcards and letters written to Anna Christine and Frederik Frederiksen, my great grandparents.

This Father's Day card was signed by son Fred. It is undated and blank on the reverse.

The birthday greetings card above was undated and from Ebba Frederiksen Cederberg, the daughter of Anna Christine and Frederik. The message on the back read:

 

"Best Wishes and loving greetings from us all.  Hope you get the old hens.  We are sending under separate cover.  I am in a hurry to get these mailed and on the early train.

Bushels of love

Ebba & All"

~~~~~~~~~~

 

I hope you  enjoyed this small collection of cards and letters written to Anna Christine and Frederik Frederiksen.  They tell small but important stories and give us a view in the their lives. I consider it an honor to be able to share them with others interested in the family history.

Fred's College Graduation

 Fred Frederiksen graduated from the University of California, Southern Branch (later UCLA), in 1925.  His graduation program was shared with and saved by family.

To put this in sequence, Fred and Elda moved to Bell, California in 1923 to teach school.  Fred must have worked hard to both teach and complete the work for his degree.

His graduation was Friday, June 12, 1925.

The Last of the Fred Frederiksen Correspondence

Netherland Plaza Hotel, Cincinnati

Postmarked:  Jul 8, 1940, Cincinnati, Ohio

To:  Mr. & Mrs. Fred Frederiksen, Lewisville, Idaho

Dear Folks, 

Guess you wonder what I'm doing here.  Well we have been to N.E.A. at Milwaukee and are down here visiting some friends.  Got a new car in South Bend, Ind. and are on way to N.Y. Fair.  Will see you before end of month.

Love, Fred and Elda

Comments:  Fred and Elda are doing well.  There were back east just two years ago and here they are at a convention and going to South Bend, Indiana to buy a car and then going to the N.Y. The car was probably a Studebaker.  In the 1940 U.S. Census Fred and Elda live in Los Angeles with Elda's brother Paul and a housekeeper.  This is the last of the letters and cards in this collection that Fred sent to his parents.

A Summer Trip 1938

New Union Station, Chicago

Postmarked:  Jun 26, 1938 - Chicago, Ill

Dearest Folks,

Just arrived on the Streamliner from L.A. Had a swell trip.  Went like hell all the way.  Both feeling fine.  Leave for N.Y. in 230 minutes.  Chicago is quite some city itself - Love, Fred

 

The Statue of Liberty

 

Postmarked:  July 2, 1938

To:  Mr. & Mrs. F. Frederiksen

July 1

Dearest Folks,

We visited this place today.  Do you remember it?  We've certainly had a swell time here since last Monday.  Will tell you more about it later.  Are starting home tomorrow (Sat.) by way of Washington, D.C., New Orleans, Texas, etc.  Will write when we get home.

Love

Fred and Elda

Comment:  Fred and Elda are doing well even as the depression wears on and using their summer vacation from their teaching jobs to travel.  It would be interesting to know if his parents responded about seeing the Statue of Liberty when they arrived in America in 1890.

Fred & Elda Visit New York City

Postcard labeled:

Aerial View of Empire State Building

New York City

Postmarked July 5, 1937, New York, N.Y.

To: Mr. & Mrs. F. Frederiksen, 

      Lewisville Idaho

Sunday, July 5

Dear Folks,

We are here in New York today.  I am writing this up in the top of the tallest of all buildings. What a thrill to see the city from up here.  Wish you were here to see it with me.  Elda wouldn't come up here she doesn't like high places.  Weather is quite cloudy today so not so good for moving pictures.  Having a fine trip.

Love Fred


This is another correspondence from Fred Frederiksen to his mother and father.  In it we can see that by 1937, well into the Great Depression, that Fred and Elda are doing quite well.  Because they are both working as school teachers and do not have children it enables them to travel extensively in the summer.

A Card From An Old Friend

This postcard is out of date order sequence that the balance of these cards and letters are.  This is because of problems dating the card and the additional research that was necessary.

 

 

To:  Mrs. Fredrickson, Kilgore Idaho, Fremont Co.

Postmarked:  Wells, ?, Dec 10, 19?

"Now you better answer this card without talks through the phone.  Now will wish all a happy Christmas and new year. Good bye old friend.  Halo you old I don't believe I will say that. How are you anyway.  I haven't forgot you if I haven't wrote. Well, it is soon Xmas again & hope you will all have a good time.  I think I will spend Christmas with Ma if all is well.  Tell all the boys and girls hello.  From, Emma Zollig, your old friend."

 

Comments:

I had some trouble dating this card and figuring out who this person was.  Here is my thinking:

The card has a copyright date on the front of 1909.

Her reference to the "phone" might suggest that the phone is a fairly new thing.  What year the phone got to Kilgore is unknown.

I researched Emma Zollig in the "History of Clark County", in the findagrave.com website and finally in Ancestry.com.  I found only a single Emma Zollig on Ancestry.com and she was born in Richfield, Utah.  Her parents were born in Denmark.  She was enumerated Richfield in the 1900 and the 1910 US Census. 

My conculusion:  Emma is a friend of Anna Christine Frederiksen from her days in Richfield, Utah between 1890 and 1895.  They have maintained contact by mail over the years.  The date of the card is after 1909 and before 1917 when the Frederiksens moved to Lewisville. 

Fred and Elda Are In California

A typed letter

No Envelope

Bell, Cal.

Aug. 1, 1923

 Dearest Mother and ALL,

     We just received your dear letter and were indeed glad to hear from you once more.  It was such a newsy and interesting one too.  You will notice how promptly we are answering it too, about fifteen minutes I guess since we got it.

 

     Everything is going along about the same as usual; the weather hasn't even changed enough to notice.  Elda is still going to school in the city but she will be through a week from next Friday.  She says she will sure be glad as it gets to be quite a chore chasing back and forth every day to the city.  I am still working in the store but expect to quit as soon as her school is out and we intend to take a trip up to San Jose where Elda has an aunt living.  We want to pay them a visit before my school starts in the fall.  Gosh it seems everything in this life depends on school.  No wonder we have that old saying about "whether school keeps or not:.  It seems to be our chief business anyway.

     We were glad to see by your letter that you had been able to get to Kilgore again and see the dear ones up there.  We are surely sorry we could not get to see them before we left.  I certainly wish that you and they could get a glimpse of this wonderful country.  I don't suppose though that they would ever be satisfied here as they would be so much more apt to get a just compensation for their labors.  I am afraid they have been too long used to the slave life of Kilgore to brave the change.  I know it is hard to pull up stakes and hit for a new country, especially when you haven't much capital to start with, but gee any of you have as much as we have and we are not worrying very much.  After you get to the new country and you find it a good one it doesn't take long to settle down again.  Of course we don't know all about this country yet by any means so I wouldn't want you to come for a while that is a year or so until we see what the whole year is like here but at present it looks like a wonderful place to make your home.

     We sure hope everything goes well with you all up there this year and you have a spell of real prosperity again; that country surely needs it if any ever did.  Judging from the automobile traffic and also the railroad traffic it seems that the whole populations of the United States is on the move.  Every train is loaded both coming and going and one the roads the automobiles are as thick as they can stick, so there must be a lot of people on the go.  They all seem to be dissatisfied and are changing their location.

     Last Sunday we went into the city and had dinner with an old school friend of ours and while visiting with them another old friend and her husband walked in so we all had a dandy good visit together.  We also went to the motion picture exposition in the evening and saw quite a show, including the most wonderful fireworks I ever witnessed.  they certainly know how to do things in this place when they take a notion.

     We are going to write to the kids in Kilgore one of these days and tell them all our recent experiences.  Sure wish you and they were all here so we could see you once in a while.

     Not a great deal has happened to us since last I wrote so there isn't a lot of news to tell this time.  We had been sort of hoping that we would get to see President Harding when he arrived; he took sick in San Francisco and has cancelled all the rest of his trip so I guess we won't get to see him this time.  This city is quite keenly disappointed about it but I guess it couldn't be helped as he is only human like the rest of us and has not more control his destiny than we would have.

     No, we haven't seen Lloyd P. yet.  Did you tell us his address?  I don't know where he lives.  Would like to see him.  We haven't seen Martin's wife either, although we go through Huntington Park every time we go to the city.  You know Marie only gave me her post box number and it is pretty hard to find anyone here from that. In fact it is hard enough when you have their complete street address and every thing. So if she can give me that maybe I can find her.

     Well, dear ones, it is bed time and elda is already there, scolding me for sitting up so late, (although it is only a little after nine.)  You see we go to bed earlier than we use ter because we have to get up earlier and besides this is the darnest place to sleep I ever saw.  So g o o d  n i g h t I  a m g ett ing s l e e p y.

      Write soon to your kids  Loads of love to you all.

                        Fred and Elda

 

 

Comments:

Fred's note about seeing the family at Kilgore before they left suggests that Fred and Elda left for California sometime earlier in that year.  Given school year cycles and assuming that Elda was teaching the previous year in Idaho, they would have left after school was out.

 Fred's references to going into the city are interesting.  Bell is immediately south of downtown Los Angeles, only three or four miles.

 His spacing on the getting sleepy in the last paragraph is funny.