General Notes

Notes for FREDERICA JOHANNA KRUGER:
          By Joise De Wall

I never knew my grandfather very well, as he died a number of years before I was born.  Frederika and Fred were married in Freeport, Illinois, but later moved to Forreston.  My grandfather was a railroad man.  As many men of his time, he did odd jobs on the side, such as butchering and barbering.  I shall always remember my grandmother as a very kind, Christian lady.  She was always ready and willing to help any one in need of her services.  I'm sure all of her children and grandchildren loved her very much.  Her life was not all a bed of roses though.  She had a very meager education and was called upon to start working out at the age of 9 years.  Her family was very poor.  I can recall her telling us of her experience while working at one place.  The man of the house told her to go to the pasture to get the cow to be milked.  It was bitter cold weather with a lot of snow on the ground.  Of course, with wooden shoes on, by the time she got back with the cow, her feet were frozen.  The lady of the house didn't want Rika's mother to find out about this, so she said if she wouldn't tell her mother, she would buy her a new calico dress the next time she went to town.  She had several tragedies happen during her life time.  One was when her son, 12 years of age, who was taking lunch to his father at the railroad, was killed by a train.  Another was when she lost her oldest daughter in a shooting accident.  Her daughter was shot and killed instantly by a man who had a quarrel with her husband.  He had warned her not to go to the window when they heard shooting in the street, but she had already started drawing the curtain aside and the shot came instantly.  Her husband was only 35 and grandmother stayed with the family until the children were old enough to care for themselves.  Her relatives remember her as a very witty person, good for laughs and playing jokes.  What was a marvel was how she could be this way with all the tragedies in her life.  She said, "We must live for today, for yesterday is gone."  She lived a very useful life.