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Johannes Fridolin Epper, my husband’s grandfather, was born in 1880 in Heldswil, Switzerland in the canton of Thurgau, the apple chamber of the country. After falling in love with Margaretta he moves to Appenzell where he becomes a dairy farmer. With a bright future ahead, everything changes when tragedy strikes altering his life. Feeling as though he has no other alternative, he boards the SS La Touraine, as a second-class passenger headed for America.
Landing at Ellis Island on May 6, 1905, he boards a train embarking on a cross-country journey to the city of angels. In Los Angeles, Fridolin, now called Fred, with only a dime to his name, fortuitously finds employment with Mr. Burr, from the Maple Grove Creamery where he meets Shu-sai Chong, whom everyone calls Su, the Burr’s houseboy. Inadvertently Fred discovers Su’s secret, which he has tried desperately to keep private, determined to save his father from leprosy. While Markus, the foreman, defends a religion he feels drawn to, ultimately promoting new denominations.
In 1909, twenty years after Washington becomes a state, Fred arrives to Chehalis County where he leases land from Albert Schafer, of Schaffer Bros. Logging, in Satsop. In 1911, during the State Dairymen’s 12th annual convention held at Maple Hall, Governor, Marion East Hay, is the guest of honor where he also meets the Honorable F. R. Spinning from Stuck Valleys or Puyallup.
Then in 1912, Dewey, one of Fred’s herdsmen, persuades Fred into writing a letter to a woman he found in a matrimonial catalogue known only as the Lady from Switzerland. Feeling appalled by the idea of a mail-order-bride, he succumbs sending her a photograph and a letter, while asking himself … what if?
Landing at Ellis Island on May 6, 1905, he boards a train embarking on a cross-country journey to the city of angels. In Los Angeles, Fridolin, now called Fred, with only a dime to his name, fortuitously finds employment with Mr. Burr, from the Maple Grove Creamery where he meets Shu-sai Chong, whom everyone calls Su, the Burr’s houseboy. Inadvertently Fred discovers Su’s secret, which he has tried desperately to keep private, determined to save his father from leprosy. While Markus, the foreman, defends a religion he feels drawn to, ultimately promoting new denominations.
In 1909, twenty years after Washington becomes a state, Fred arrives to Chehalis County where he leases land from Albert Schafer, of Schaffer Bros. Logging, in Satsop. In 1911, during the State Dairymen’s 12th annual convention held at Maple Hall, Governor, Marion East Hay, is the guest of honor where he also meets the Honorable F. R. Spinning from Stuck Valleys or Puyallup.
Then in 1912, Dewey, one of Fred’s herdsmen, persuades Fred into writing a letter to a woman he found in a matrimonial catalogue known only as the Lady from Switzerland. Feeling appalled by the idea of a mail-order-bride, he succumbs sending her a photograph and a letter, while asking himself … what if?
480 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 23, 2025
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