Frederick Cullen Hastings

Frederick Cullen Hastings, fifth of the eight children of Mary Lena Brown and Frank Opal Hastings, was born on Easter Sunday, 23 April 1905, in Martintown, Green County, WI, the village founded by his great-grandparents Nathaniel Martin and Hannah Strader. Aside from a brief household relocation to Dilly, Vernon County, WI when Fred was a very small child, he was raised entirely in Martintown. He was known as Fritz. In fact, this monicker stuck to him so thoroughly that some acquaintances and even relatives were unsure what his “real” name was. He will be called Fritz for the rest of this biography. In his business life, he was also sometimes known as F.C. Hastings.

Fritz’s father worked for many years for Illinois Central Railroad, and all five Hastings boys put in a stretch working for that same employer. However, of them all, only Ernie chose to make the railroad his long-term career. Fritz’s tenure was a brief one, consisting of not much more than helping out as a youngster on his dad’s section-repair crew.

Fritz married Lottie Bell Rodebaugh, daughter of James Howard Rodebaugh and Anna Van Sickle, born 26 August 1909. She was from Winslow, Stephenson County, IL. This town is only a mile south of Martintown. The Hastings family and Rodebaugh clans were well acquainted, and Fritz and Lottie were within each other’s sphere from an early age. Both attended Winslow High School, though with a four-year age difference between them, they did not go there at the same time. (Shown at right is Lottie’s senior photo from the 1928 Win-Nel, the yearbook of Winslow High.) They were joined in matrimony 18 June 1929 in Galena, Jo Daviess County, IL. It was not quite an elopement. The wedding had been announced for Saturday, the 22nd in Winslow, but in order to thwart a practical joke they knew was in the works, the couple loaded into a car the preceding Tuesday along with Fritz’s eldest brother John Cecil Hastings, drove to Galena, and got the official aspects done early.

The newlyweds settled at first in Martintown. As he had before the marriage, Fritz worked in the electric plant on the bank of the Pecatonica River -- which is to say he was employed at the site of the mills his great-grandfather Nathaniel had established in the early 1850s. The original electric-generation equipment had been installed at the mills in 1908 by Nathaniel’s son-in-law Elwood Bucher. Fritz was one of many Martin/Strader relatives to work at the plant in subsequent years, though by the time of his tenure, Elwood had already sold the business to outside interests who had constructed a brick building and installed far more modern equipment.

Fritz and Lottie’s first six children arrived at a steady clip through the 1930s, and then a seventh and final child was born in the mid-1940s. These seven include three who died young. Firstborn son Paul Eugene Hastings, born 1 April 1930, died 26 June 1946 in an automobile accident at only sixteen years of age. Barbara Ann Hastings, born 7 April 1934, suffered a severe fall 10 November 1935 that left her paralyzed and with internal injuries that led to an infection that grew septic. She perished at Deaconess Hospital in Monroe, Green County, WI 6 December 1935 at only twenty months of age. James Franklin Hastings, born 8 January 1936, survived only one day, passing away 9 January 1936.

In the 1930s the electric plant, under the ownership of Wisconsin Power & Light, continued to be a viable business even in the midst of the Great Depression. Nevertheless Fritz ceased working there. The bond with Martintown dimmed, perhaps as a side effect of the double blow of losing daughter Barbara and then newborn son James only five weeks apart. Wanting a fresh start, Fritz and Lottie spent the next couple of years in Illinois, during which time two more sons were born, and then in approximately 1939 moved to South Wayne, Lafayette County, WI. (South Wayne is located half a dozen miles northwest of Martintown.) Fritz worked there operating a portable mill, grinding grain into feed for livestock and poultry.

A legacy of the South Wayne years was that Fritz became a Mason, joining the local lodge, #278 A.F.&A.M. He kept up his involvement with this group for the rest of his life, even though the interval spent actually residing within South Wayne itself was rather short. During the war years, Fritz became a hired hand on a farm on State Line Road due west of Martintown. He and Lottie rented a house on that farm. Their mailing address was Winslow, but the neighbors had a sense of community of their own, overlapping but a bit separate from the village. For example, Lottie was a member of -- and officer of -- a “homemaker” social club known as the State Line Troopers. The tight circle of friends helped get Lottie and Fritz through the tough time in the wake of young Paul’s fatal traffic accident -- an event that occurred right on State Line Road itself.

Toward the end of the 1940s, Fritz decided to go back to work for Wisconsin Power & Light. They served the small town of Monroe, seat of Green County. Fritz became the engineering clerk for the company in the town. He commuted to work at first, but for a year or two (or three) in the first half of the 1950s, Fritz and Lottie rented a house at 1817 Ninth Street. In early 1954, they moved back to Winslow -- and this time it was back to the village itself. They rented an apartment on the western outskirts of the community.

Fritz died unexpectedly of a heart attack Monday evening, 1 November 1965 at home in Winslow. His remains were interred three days later in Rock Lily Cemetery. Lottie survived him by over twenty years. She spent her whole widowhood in Winslow. (Descendants live in Winslow to this day, a son even serving as mayor.) Lottie worked in Winslow as well, holding down a part-time job at Ockers Drugs. She passed away 3 July 1986.

Descendants of Frederick Cullen Hastings with Lottie Bell Rodebaugh

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