Frederick Trump | |
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Trump in 1918
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Born |
Friedrich Trump March 14, 1869 Kallstadt, Kingdom of Bavaria |
Died | May 27, 1918 Woodhaven, Queens, New York |
(aged 49)
Nationality | German American |
Occupation | Barber, operator of restaurants and hotels |
Spouse(s) | Elisabeth Christ (m. 1902) |
Children | Elizabeth, Fred, and John |
Parent(s) | Johannes Trump Katharina Kober |
Relatives | See Trump family |
Frederick Trump (born Friedrich Trump; March 14, 1869 – May 27, 1918) was a German-American businessman. Born in Kallstadt, in the Kingdom of Bavaria (now in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany), he emigrated to the United States at the age of 16 and started working as a barber. Several years later in 1891, he moved to the Northwest. He made his fortune operating boom-town restaurants and boarding houses in Seattle and a mining town to the north, and in the Klondike Gold Rush. He later returned to Germany and married. When authorities found that he had emigrated when young to avoid fulfilling his military service, he lost his Bavarian citizenship; he and his family returned to the United States.
He worked as a barber and hotel manager, and began to acquire real estate in Queens. He was the father of Fred and John G. Trump, and grandfather of Donald Trump, the 45th President of the United States.
Friedrich Trump was born in Kallstadt, Palatinate, then part of the Kingdom of Bavaria, to Johannes Trump and Katharina Kober. Confessionally, the village was Lutheran like most of the Palatinate but in contrast to the Bavarian mainland which was overwhelmingly Catholic. Trump's earliest known male ancestor is Johann Paul Trump (1727–1792) who lived in the nearby village of Bobenheim am Berg and whose son Johannes Trump (1789–1835) moved to Kallstadt around 1800. (As to "Drumpf", see below.) The Palatinate, then a relatively impoverished region, has been known for its viticulture since the Roman Empire.
Through much of the 19th century to 1871, the Palatinate was part of the Kingdom of Bavaria. That year Bavaria became part of the new German Empire. During periods of war and anti-German discrimination in the United States, Trump's son Fred later denied his German heritage, claiming his father had been a Swede from Karlstad. This version was recounted by Fred's son Donald in his 1987 autobiography.