Frederick Christ Trump

Frederick Christ Trump Sr. (October 11, 1905 – June 25, 1999) was an American real estate developer, primarily in New York City, and father of Donald Trump, the 45th President of the United States, and Maryanne Trump Barry, a United States Court of Appeals judge.

Source: Wikipedia

Soon after his father’s death, 15-year-old Frederick Christ Trump (1905-1999) went into the real estate and construction business with his mother. Their company, Elizabeth Trump & Son Co., grew steadily in the post-WWI years.

During the 1920s and 30s, Trump focused on building affordable single-family houses in Brooklyn and Queens. He was a perfectionist who insisted on using quality materials. He supervised his work crews closely.

In 1936, Fred married Mary Ann MacLeod from Scotland, whom he met when she was in New York on vacation. They had five children. Fred sometimes took the children with him on inspection tours of his properties.

Always the frugal businessman, Trump was known to save unused nails, mix his own floor cleaner, and personally handle the extermination work at some properties.

Occasionally, the company released balloons at Coney Island containing coupons for $50 off the $4,990 purchase price of a Trump home.

During WWII, Trump built housing developments for U.S. Navy personnel near the large East Coast shipyards.

After the war, he built middle-income homes for returning veterans and their families. His Beach Haven development had 2,700 apartments. Trump Village had 3,800.

Over the next decades, the company expanded into rental properties. By the time Donald joined the company in 1968, Fred Trump had built over 27,000 low-income apartments in Brooklyn and Queens and was worth about $300 million.

In 1999, Fred died of pneumonia, as had his father. For six years prior to his death, he had suffered from Alzheimer’s.

• Source: Rocky Smith Net

Father of 45th US President Donald J. Trump. Real Estate Developer. Fred Trump was the second of three children born to German immigrants, Friederich Trump and Elizabeth Christ. His father died in 1918, when Fred was 13 years old.

Two years later, while still in high school, he started his own construction business building garages in Queens, New York. By the late 1920s he had graduated to building single-family homes. During the depression, he took a risk and opened one of the first supermarkets in the area. His slogan was "Serve Yourself and Save". He eventually sold the supermarket after making a fortune with the venture. After World War II, when apartments for returning servicemen and their families were in short supply, Trump branched out into middle-income housing. Between 1949 and 1963 he built over 27,000 apartments and row homes in Brooklyn and Queens, New York.

Despite his fortune, Fred and his wife of 61 years, Scottish-born Mary McLeod, lived in a red-brick Colonial they built in 1951 on a half-acre lot in the middle-class suburb of Jamaica Estates, in Queens, New York. They had five children: Maryanne (born 1937), a federal appeals court judge; Frederick "Fred" Jr. (1938–81); Elizabeth (born 1942), a banking executive; Donald (born 1946) businessman, television personality and US President; and Robert (born 1948), president of his father's property management company.

• Find-A-Grave