Frederick Thoma might never have had any intention of becoming a farmer. Born on 04 December 1857 in Garnavillo, Clayton County, Iowa, Fred was the eldest of eleven children born to Bavarian immigrants Wilhelm Heinrich Thoma and Anna Margaretha Poesch. His father, a respected community leader, owned and operated a general store in the town of Garnavillo, which is where Fred and his siblings were raised. In 1876, when Fred was eighteen, his father died; three years later, on 29 December 1879, he married Matilda J. Hammond, the daughter of a prosperous local farmer.
Fred and Matilda, who were known familiarly as Fritz and Tillie, had five children: George Hiram (born 1880), Leonard Christopher (born 1885), Ludelia Maria (born 1887), Roselyn Anna (born 1892), and Norma Evaline (born 1895). All lived to adulthood with the exception of Norma, who died in a diphtheria outbreak at the age of ten. This was not the first time that Fred had lost a loved one to communicable disease: two of his brothers had died of consumption, both when they were twenty-four, in 1886 and 1890. One can imagine that each of these losses would have had a profound impact on Fred.
As a young married man, Fred was a store clerk in Garnavillo; according to local news clippings, he then, over the course of several years, opened an agricultural warehouse, carrying “a full line of cultivators, reapers, etc.,” and next operated a saloon or billiard hall, dealing in “pure Wines and Liquors, choice Cigars, etc.,” before briefly entering the “fruit and fancy grocery business.” By 1895, however, when he was thirty-seven, the census recorded that he was a laborer, and his occupation remained the same in both 1900 and 1905. It seems that his business endeavors were ultimately unsuccessful, and family lore gives a clue as to why.
Decades later, Fred’s granddaughter recalled that his vice was alcohol, noting that his eldest son had left home as a teenager for this reason, and also that Fred’s wife, upon receiving an inheritance from the estate of her parents, bought a farm in order to remove Fred from town and from the temptation of the saloon. Indeed, in March of 1910, a local newspaper reported that Matilda Thoma had purchased 80 acres from William D. Harnack and his wife for $4800, and by the time of the U.S. census that April, the couple resided on their farm in rural Clayton.
The move northeast from Garnavillo into rural Clayton Township was a distance of about five miles, and it brought Fred and Matilda closer to the family of their eldest daughter and son-in-law who also farmed there. Newspaper clippings make mention of Fred and his son-in-law engaging in farm work, participating in a barn raising, and hauling sand across the Mississippi River at Clayton.
A newly uncovered photograph of Fred Thoma—in fact, the only photograph of him known to exist—shows him as a mustachioed farmer in overalls and a brimmed hat, standing beside a team of horses in front of a two-story farmhouse. It’s a beautifully kept home, featuring, at the time this photograph was taken circa 1910-1924, an inviting front porch complete with a wicker rocker, potted plants, and vines growing on a trellis. The front porch shelters two front doors, and curtains can be seen at the windows. A screened-in back porch is also visible around the side of the house, and leafy tree branches frame the shot. Fred, photographed, perhaps, after a brief rest in the Windsor chair behind him, appears relaxed and has an amiable expression.
Fred and Matilda farmed in rural Clayton between 1910 and 1924, when Fred’s poor health necessitated their return to town. In the summer of 1924, Fred had spent some weeks at the Prairie du Chien Sanitarium, where, weakened from a bout of influenza and suffering from dropsy, he had sought medical attention; his health not improved, that fall he auctioned off his livestock and numerous farming implements in a public sale. Late in the year, he and Matilda resettled in the town of Clayton; they lived there for only two months, during which time they would have celebrated forty-five years of marriage, before Fred’s death at the age of sixty-seven on 10 January 1925. The funeral was held at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Garnavillo, with members of the Garnavillo Turnverein, a German-American social club of which he was a member, in attendance.
Fred’s career as a farmer may have made up less than a decade and a half of his adult life, but one can hope that these were at the least peaceful, pleasant years for him and his family—years during which Matilda was able to put to use her skills and knowledge from a childhood spent on a farm, and Fred was able to face fewer temptations, connect with his adult children and young grandchildren, and engage in fulfilling work. The farmhouse where he and Matilda spent these quiet years still stands today on Great River Road between Garnavillo and Clayton.
Copyright © 2025 Melanie Frick. All Rights Reserved.
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