Book 2 - Nathan, Amy, Madison and Ethan Berga

Who was Jerome Fry
Jerome Fry was born to Isaac Gabriel Fry and Harriet
Athelene Cole in Eagle, Richland County, Wisconsin on
June 14, 1868. His father, Isaac Gabriel, was born in Tennessee,
June 7, 1845 to George Washington Fry and Barbara
Ann Smelcer. He married Harriet Athelene Cole November
23, 1865. Harriet was born November 2, 1848 and died
April 23, 1906. Isaac Gabriel died, November 5, 1921.
September 1, 1888, Jerome was stabbed in the chest by
Elmer Williams. Jerome was 20. On March 7, 1892, Jerome
married Ida Arnetta Griffen. The couple had three
children, Anthony, Orin, and Buford, who was born January
11, 1896. The couple divorced four months later to the
day. 4 months after that, Jerome married Otie Kuykendall,
August 16, 1896. Otie was the daughter of Jacob, born in
February of 1876 in Wisconsin. A year after their marriage,
in September of 1897, Jerome shot Dexter Thompson. After
the inquiry, and acquittal, Jerome took his family to
live with his father. Two weeks later, their home in Willow,
caught on fire, destroying everything but their organ. By
1900, the Frys lived in Fairview, and Topeka, Kansas.
Northern Wisconsin was heavily wooded, with many lumber
camps. The logs were moved by train, making the rail
road in Oneida County crucial for commerce and industry. 92
It was here, in Gagen, near Rhinelander, that Jerome Fry
would cross paths with John Johnson. Jerome had returned
from Kansas to worked with his brother Edgar Milton on
the rail road. His son, Theron, was born in Wisconsin April
13 th . Jerome and his family boarded John Johnson who was
the saloon keeper at Gagen. John Johnson had moved to
the area sometime after his divorce from Nettie in 1900.
Once again, Jerome found himself at the center of a murder
trial, after a deadly fight with Johnson on September
3, 1903. Jerome’s self defense plea acquitted him, allowing
him to keep his job with the rail road. In 1905, he moved
his family to Amber, Wisconsin, in Marinette County. Two
more children were born to the couple; Frank in 1907,
Pearl in 1909. Jerome once again left Wisconsin, this time
for Flint Rock, South Dakota, in Perkins County. A daughter,
Cecil, was born in 1913 in Wisconsin. After the couple
divorced, Jerome lived with relatives; the Privette family,
in the town of Howard. The Privette family employed servants,
one of which was Cecelia Krause, a young mother
with two daughters. In 1930, Jerome lived with them; marrying
her shortly after. He was 61, she was 31.
Jerome died on February 6, 1948 and was buried in his
family’s plot in Appleton, Wisconsin. Otie died in September
of that year.
Incidentally, Jerome’s son, Frank, became a police officer.
In 1969, he was kidnapped & murdered during a motel
robbery in Appleton, Wisconsin. His body was found along
side the road, after his kidnappers dumped him and fled.
No one has been brought to trial in this case. 86
Ironically, Jerome’s sister, Rachel Fry, married her second
husband, James Peter Gorich, and settled in Shelton, Washington
in 1940, right down the road from Nettie Nordrum,
the same Nettie, whose first husband was killed by Rachel’s
brother. Rachel had lived in Northern Wisconsin, with her
first husband, Edgar Reagle and their 7 children. Edgar left
the family regularly. He finally married a young immigrant
farm girl and moved to western Montana; when she died
several years later, he returned to the same family and married
the sister, again returning west. 86,92
Rachel Fry Gorich lived in Shelton to the end of her life,
and was buried in Shelton Memorial Cemetery in 1970. 87,92
Two years later, Nettie would be interned in the same cemetery.
There is no evidence that these women knew one
another, as both their last names had changed. Real life is
stranger than fiction.
photo courtesy of Lori Dollevoet 86
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