Frederick S Schwartz

GEDCOM Note

FRED SCHWARZ. Persistent industry has placed this gentleman among the prosperous agriculturists of eastern Nebraska. Fred Schwarz, formerly of Osmond, first came to Nebraska with his parents in 1871. He was born in Hancock, Michigan, November 2, 1864. His father, Hy Schwarz, came from Upper Hessia, Germany, and was employed in the mines of Michigan, where he died when Fred was a small lad. The mother, who was Elizabeth Faubel, a native of Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany, married George Schwarz, a brother of her first husband, and, with him, migrated to Nebraska in 1871. They came by rail to Fremont, Nebraska, and thence by ox team to a farm, three miles north of Wisner, Nebraska. Here Fred grew to manhood, and remained with his parents until his twenty-second year, when his step-father gave him a team of colts. He rented a farm near home some three years, and then bought a quarter-section, eight miles northwest of Norfolk, which he cultivated two years, and then sold. Moving back to Wisner, he purchased a quarter-section near town, and for ten years farmed near the home of his childhood. In March, 1902, he came to Osmond, and bought a farm, north of town, on which he lived two years, then sold, and bought a farm of one hundred and twenty-six acres to the west of Osmond, and within the corporate limits. Here he raised stock, feeding all the grain he cultivated, and so managed that he needed little hired help, except in the rush season in the middle of summer. On February 22, 1911, he moved to the old place on which he was reared, which he purchased of his step-father, paying one hundred and tweny-five dollars per acre. The farm contains two hundred acres. Mr. Shwarz [sic] was married at Wisner, February 27, 1890, to Miss Henrietta Brandes, who was born March 4, 1872, near Scribner, Nebraska, and a daughter of William and Elizabeth (Dobelstein) Brandes, natives of Hanover and Holstein, Germany, respectively. They came to America in 1871, and settled eventually near Wisner, Nebraska, where the father still lives. The mother died, March 9, 1908. Mr. Schwarz is a democrat in politics, but has no lodge affiliations. Mr. Schwarz well remembers the deep snow of the winter of 1881 and 1882. A drift formed at their corncrib nine feet high, until chickens, pigs and other stock could walk up the drift and help themselves. In contrast, the family were often called upon to fight prairie fires. Game was plentiful in the country when Mr. Schwarz first came - so much so, that he has seen twenty to thirty deer in a herd. His step-father killed but one, however, the only venison they had. Times were so hard during the early years that there was no money to buy ammunition, to say nothing of a rifle in which to use it. A few wild turkeys were seen from time to time in those days. The first years they lived in a dugout, and for one year lived in the house of an uncle, whose wife had died. They returned to the dugout, and later built a good residence. When Fred was fourteen, he hired out at ten dollars per month, and bound grain on a harvester with a school ma'am. Mr. Schwarz was not out in the notable blizzard of 1888, but Mrs. Schwarz was kept in the school house all night. She started to go home, contrary to warnings, and got outside the door, which opened to the north. The blast struck her, and threw her