Elizabeth Christ Trump

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Elizabeth Christ Trump (1902)

Elizabeth Christ Trump (born October 10, 1880 in Kallstadt as Elisabeth Christ ; † June 6, 1966 in Manhasset ) was a German-American businesswoman . She founded the real estate company Elizabeth Trump & Son , a forerunner of the Trump Organization , which has belonged to her grandson, US President Donald Trump , since 1971 .

Life

Early life

Elisabeth Christ was born on October 10, 1880 in Kallstadt, Palatinate, as the daughter of Philipp Christ and Anna Maria Christ, née. Anthon, born. Her parents were poor winegrowers , and her father also traded in household goods, which earned him the nickname Gscherr-Christ . The family was not well respected in Kallstadt.

In 1901, the former son of a neighbor, Friedrich Trump , who had emigrated to the United States , made a fortune by running restaurants in the Klondike gold rush and when Frederick Trump was naturalized, came to Kallstadt to find a wife in his hometown . His choice fell on Elisabeth, who had been a small child when he emigrated. Against the violent objection of his mother, who tried to persuade her wealthy son to make a suitable choice, he became engaged to Elisabeth, and in 1902 he returned to the wedding, which took place on August 26th in Ludwigshafen .

The couple then settled in a district of the Bronx inhabited by German immigrants , a district of New York . There they lived in a modern, quite luxuriously furnished apartment house. Despite the comfort and the German-speaking environment, Elizabeth, as she officially called herself there, soon suffered from severe homesickness, and after the birth of the daughter of the same name, the family returned to Germany in 1904. Her husband's application for return citizenship, however, was rejected by the Bavarian interior authorities in Speyer (the Palatinate was part of Bavaria at the time) because it was assumed that he wanted to avoid military service by emigrating in 1885. In 1905 they were therefore expelled from Germany and finally moved to the USA, where they initially lived again in the Bronx. On the crossing, Elizabeth was five months pregnant with her second child, Fred . After the birth of their third child, John, in 1907, the family moved to the borough of Queens , which at the time was also strongly German. After her husband fell victim to the Spanish flu in May 1918 , the 37-year-old Elizabeth inherited a fortune of around 30,000 US dollars (value around 510,000 US dollars today), which was considerable in the severe post-war inflation of 1919/20 lost value.

Activity as an entrepreneur

Elizabeth Trump continued her husband's real estate business by building houses on the five vacant lots he had left behind, selling them and giving mortgage loans to buyers . In addition, she worked as a seamstress . In 1925 she founded the company Elizabeth Trump & Son and officially ran it until her underage son Fred, who had just completed his first house and thus entered the construction industry, was of legal age.

Private

Their daughter Elizabeth (1904–1961) married William (Bill) Walter, who became a successful banker , in 1929 and had two sons with him. Her youngest son, John G. Trump (1907-1985) was an electrical engineer and physicist and from 1936 to 1973 professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . He has made significant contributions to reducing the side effects of radiation therapy for cancer. During the Second World War he was responsible for equipping the American armed forces in Europe with the latest radar equipment and was honored as a war hero for this.

Elizabeth Christ Trump lived in Queens until her death. She remained lifelong connected to her hometown of Kallstadt. She last celebrated her 80th birthday there in 1960.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Trump's ancestors , a family tree created by ( Memento from January 8, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Johannes Steiniger with the help of "documents from registry offices, [old] church registers and other historical archives"
  2. ^ Gwenda Blair : The Trumps: Three Generations of Builders and a Presidential Candidate. Simon & Schuster, New York 2015. p. 95.
  3. ↑ Gwenda Blair: The Trumps. Three Generations of Builders and a Presidential Candidate . Simon & Schuster, New York 2015. pp. 94f.
  4. ↑ Gwenda Blair: The Trumps. Three Generations of Builders and a Presidential Candidate . Simon & Schuster, New York 2015. p. 97.
  5. ↑ Gwenda Blair: The Trumps. Three Generations of Builders and a Presidential Candidate . Simon & Schuster, New York 2015. p. 99.
  6. ↑ Gwenda Blair: The Trumps. Three Generations of Builders and a Presidential Candidate . Simon & Schuster, New York 2015. p. 102.
  7. ↑ Gwenda Blair: The Trumps. Three Generations of Builders and a Presidential Candidate . Simon & Schuster, New York 2015. pp. 112–114.
  8. ↑ Gwenda Blair: The Trumps. Three Generations of Builders and a Presidential Candidate . Simon & Schuster, New York 2015. pp. 116–119.
  9. ↑ Gwenda Blair: The Trumps. Three Generations of Builders and a Presidential Candidate . Simon & Schuster, New York 2015. p. 119.
  10. ↑ Gwenda Blair: The Trumps. Three Generations of Builders and a Presidential Candidate . Simon & Schuster, New York 2015. p. 120.
  11. ↑ Gwenda Blair: The Trumps: Three Generations That Built an Empire. Simon & Schuster, New York 2000, pp. 122, 148.
  12. ↑ Louis Smullin: John George Trump 1907-1985 In: Memorial Tributes: National Academy of Engineering , Volume 3 (1989), pp. 334f.
  13. ↑ Gwenda Blair: The Trumps. Three Generations of Builders and a Presidential Candidate . Simon & Schuster, New York 2015, p. 228.
  14. ↑ Kate Conolly: Kallstadt, Germany: on the trail of 'the Donald' in the Trump ancestral home. The Guardian , Jan. 29, 2016.
personal data
SURNAME Trump, Elizabeth Christ
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Christ, Elizabeth (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH October 10, 1880
PLACE OF BIRTH Kallstadt
DATE OF DEATH June 6, 1966
Place of death Manhasset