Frese, G. Henry Sr. 1841 - 1895

FRESE, FOX

Posted By: Reid R. Johnson (email)
Date: 4/1/2022 at 20:16:24

Elkader Register, Fri., 23 Aug. 1895.

Although not unexpected, still the shock to his host of friends was great, when on Saturday afternoon last at McGregor, it was known that G. Henry Frese had breathed his last. Few men in Clayton County will be more missed. Truthful, faithful and honest, kind and generous to a fault, he ever stood ready to organize relief for the distressed when in his power. As a lawyer, he earned his money by indefatigable efforts to keep his clients out of trouble, rather, than in formenting trouble. And, having an even temperment, few excelled him in the capacity to adjust and reconcile differences among his fellow men.

He knew how to differ without quarreling, and if provoked to anger, he had that rare and valuable quality, calmness in anger.

Mr. Frese was born in Germany, Sept. 17th, 1841. Came with his parents to Cincinnati in 1844, thence in 1855 to Guttenberg. Thence in the spring of 1861 to McGregor, where he entered the office of Noble & Drummond as clerk and student, at $25. per month. At the expiration of his first year's service, he had developed such valuable qualities as bookkeeper, conveyancer and collector, that his wages were increased to $700. per annum. Soon afterwards he became fairly well posted in the general principals of law, and was admitted to practice, but from his want of aggressiveness and confidence in himself as a speaker, he avoided practice in the courts and confined himself to all around work for his employers, in and outside of their office, until January 1st, 1869, when the firm of Noble, Hatch & Frese was formed, which continued until January 1st, 1875, when that firm was dissolved and the firm of Hatch & Frese was formed succeeded it but was not long continued. Soon afterwards his health, never rugged, began to fail, forbidding confinement in all office, and necessitating outdoor work alone. He worked at farming, did some collecting, some negotiating and adjusting differences between friends, some work as Deputy Sherriff, all outdoor work, finally concluding that he could be successful in an office, again entered that of his old friend Noble. But with confinement in the office, the dreaded cough from which he had apparently recovered some twenty years before, returned, and he became a great sufferer, incapable of enduring the work and confinement in an office, for which he was so admirably fitted by nature and education, to perform.

His last intelligent conversation, was on Wednesday evening, preceding his death, when he called his wife and four children to his bedside, and calmly and affectionately, bid each good bye, gave plain directions about his funeral and place of burial, then passed into a serene semi-comatose condition, from which he never fully rallied.

He was married Dec. 1861, to Mary, youngest daughter of the late Christian and Della Fox, highly respected old pioneers of McGregor. His wife and four children survive him. Della S., the elder daughter, is a popular music teacher, Margarette, the younger daughter, a skillful telegraphic operator of our town, while Henry the elder son, is now in the employ of the jewelry house of Henry Strouse, at McGregor, and John the younger son at school. - McGregor News.