Fred was born in an Iowa log cabin (not really, but it makes a good story -- on the other hand, Fred's wife Yvonne really was born in a log cabin on Indian land near Stella, Oklahoma) on August 19, 1931. Like many of us, Fred started his life journey at an early age. Unlike most of us, however, it didn’t take him long to discover two of his life’s passions: science and history. (He didn’t learn abouthis third passion, Yvonne, until a few years later.)
Being blessed with a photographic memory helped Fred develop his passions, which also explains why he can still rattle off the Norse derivations of a word or pop up with little known historical facts, complete with footnotes.
Born of English-Welsh-German (and a touch of Irish) parents, Fred learned about machines from his railroading and "telephone man" father and gained a sense of family history from his mother. As a young man, he worked at a number of odd jobs as they became available, including shining shoes, herding cattle, and digging bones.
A stint in the USAF served a number of purposes in Fred’s life: his love of science focused on avionics, he got to see lovely Korea during the "Police Action" there, and he met Yvonne on a double-date. (He never did say whose date Yvonne was, and I’m not about to ask.) They eloped, driving from California to Las Vegas where they were married at the "Hitching Post" Wedding Chapel. The Chapel has since been moved down the street, but it’s still there and is now a Historical Site in Las Vegas – in fact, their younger daughter was married there a few years ago. The minister who married Fred and Yvonne had just retired three months before or the young couple would have had the same man marry them.
Like many young struggling couples of the time, they used the GI Bill to buy a "little house on the prairie". Actually it was on the north side of the Palos Verde hills, a part of Torrance, California. And Fred went to night school on the GI Bill, earning a degree and then went on to earn an MBA some years later.
Over the years, they did some hobby weekend ranching and various other activities, some of which produced two children – Karen and Janet. Fred stayed in touch with the world of avionics, working as a draftsman (later the supervisor of same)for various Aircraft companies in southern California. His career included stints with Douglas Aircraft, North American Rockwell, Northrop, Hughes, TRW, GTE, Arcata Associates in Las Vegas, IFT in Vegas and Phoenix, and now Globalstar in San Jose. He has also worked with some "company" that he won’t talk about. (He could tell us some tales, but then he would have to silence us in a permanent way, so once again we don’t ask.) When Yvonee became ill in 2002, Fred retired to care for her and began dedicating his spare time to his novels.
Fred’s passion for words, as well as his internal dictionary, kept growing. He retired from GTE in Mountain View, California to their home in Las Vegas. After eighteen months of just relaxing, he went to work first at the Debbie Reynolds Casino-real estate division, then Arcata Associates, a company that services the Nevada Bombing Test Site (there is no Area 51). From there, he moved to Interactive Flight Technologies, a Las Vegas company that relocated to Phoenix. Fred moved with the company and discovered that other IFT-ers shared his interest in words and word histories. They started "Fred’s Word of the Week" just before Thanksgiving in 1996. The first "Word" was about the derivation of the bird named "Turkey– eventually giving birth to this web site.
Written by Tom Mason, fellow pack rat, word slinger, and original Member of Fred’s Word Club.