Fred's father's family came from Switzerland. The house is grandfather grew up in is still lived in. His grandfather married a Dresser, whose father, Nathaniel, was in the state legislature. On Fred's mother's side, they were from Germany and lived in St. Louis for a while. They moved to Reno, IL. Joshua Dresser came to Illinois by horseback and found a place for the family to live. The next year, in the 1830s, the rest of the family came by covered wagon to settle near Reno, IL. Kurt Baumberger still owns some of this land. Fred has four brothers and sisters.
CHILDHOOD WORK
Everything was heated with wood. The house was built in 1914. They paid the carpenters that built the house $1.25 a day. As soon as he was old enough he was put to work splitting logs and chopping wood for the wood furnace in the basement or the kitchen stove. It would get cold at night, so they would heat irons and wrap them in towels and put them in their beds. As Fred got older, he had to help weed the garden. They had "truck patch" for a while in the 1930s, but it wasn't too successful. They would gather walnuts in the fall. Fred and his brother were involved in 4-H and they each bought milk cows. Fred's cost $37. He would have to feed the cows silage. They had a windmill on the farm that pumped water for the cattle. When the water got low they would have to carry water in barrels.
