Frederick Winkler

Fred, the fourth son of Henry and Caroline, was born in San Francisco on the 18th of July, 1880. Until December of 2007, all that was known of him was from censuses with his parents and the records at the Olivet cemetery office. He died November 29, 1907 in San Francisco, at the age of 27, a hard blow to the whole family. We believe he was the brother who had a nasty fall from construction scaffolding.

Late in the summer we came upon his obituary from the San Francisco Examiner which said he was married to a woman named Zella. Since he was rather young when he died, this was wonderful to find out that he was married, because there might be a child to look for, though none was listed. From the 1910 census now we know why... Frederick died when his wife was about 6 months pregnant! Frieda Winkler was born in February of 1908, her mother's maiden name listed as Wilson, although the 1910 census suggests something else. I then found Frieda's married name and the one son she had. Fred's own decendants have very few details about their own family.

Frank Winkler III knows a little of what his grandfather told him. Talking with him in December of 07 he said he remembered something about how (Fred) was up working on a fire suppression system -sprinklers- when his hand slipped, then so did he. He wasn't sure of details, but he sounded like he knew an awful lot about it, probably because he was a plumber, too, like Fred.

Yes, this has taken some doing to find out all this.