Fred Hegerhorst

submitted by: Hudson Anglin


I’m writing about my Great Grandpa Fred Jegerhorst. He grew up in Reinsen, Germany. He was born on May 27, 1892. His parents were Christoph and Sophie Jegerhorst and he had four siblings. Their last name was once known as “Jegerhorst”, Jeger in German means ‘hunter’ and Horst means ‘a hill’ which described their family well because they lived on a hill next to a forest.

A tradition that Germans had is their kids would be sent to school at the age of 6 and graduated at the age of 14. When they graduated they would go to other farms and learn new skills. This is what my Grandpa Fred did. When he was 17 he was able to go home and work at the coal mine with his Dad. One time he got hurt in the mine he had to go to the hospital he lost two fingers on his right hand.

In 1911 he joined the German Army, he was 19. He fought in World War 1 starting in 1914. During the War he got hit with a bullet in the right leg. After two days he was sent to a hospital in Stutgard, Germany. He was there for about 12 weeks. Then he was sent to another hospital and came home in 1916. He married his childhood sweetheart three years later in 1919.

On May 7, 1929, Fred and his family left Germany after they sold all their belongings to get to the United States. He was with his wife and his three children. It took ten days on the ship SS Columbus to get to New York City. On the ship Fred got very seasick. After they got to New York, they took a train to Salt Lake City Utah. It was hard to understand the language and the money. They didn’t like nickels because you could just use five pennies and it was larger than the dime.

I think my Great Great Grandpa is super brave and a good example because he went away from home to learn new skills when he was young, he served in World War 1, and he moved his whole family to the United States and learned the English language. I don’t think I could do those things and I think that is so cool, that is why I picked him.