FRIDAY'S FAMOUS: '27 Rose Bowl Player of the Game & FRIDAY'S FORGOTTEN: Young Mother and Child

My plan for each Friday's post is to recognize and tell the story of those individuals within our extended families, who are on the two ends of the recognition scale - the Famous, and the Forgotten. All families have them. There are the famous ones who have done something extraordinary, achieved some high level of personal success, or been recognized for an outstanding contribution - we all like to be related to them! Then there are those we never heard of - who maybe died young, or who lived a common life with no extreme story to tell, or maybe who died so long ago and without leaving any descendants that most of us didn't even know they ever lived at all - the forgotten. I hope to honor both ends of the spectrum, because every life really does have a story to tell
          For this first Friday blog, it just so happens that both ends are in the same family so I decided to tell you about both - Friday's Famous, and Forgotten.

Frederick William Pickhard, Jr.


Fred Pickhard
All-American
University of Alabama
1925-1927

 Fred Pickhard was born in Mobile, Alabama on July 20, 1906. He was the youngest child of Frederick William Pickhard (1862-1951), also from Mobile, and Estella "Stella" Guise (1865-1955), a native of Ohio. Fred's father, Frederick, Sr., had been widowed when his first wife, Amelia G. Helmetag (1862-1898), died just short of her 36th birthday. Amelia was the oldest child of Frederick William Helmetag (1834-1883) and Wilhelmina Amelia Horst (1843-1885), the half sister of my 3rd great-Grandfather Martin Horst (1830-1878). [See story below]

Fred, Jr. attended the University of Alabama and played on the Crimson Tide Football Team from 1925-1927. Fred was a 6'3", 205 lb. Offensive Tackle for the Tide. His bio on rolltide.com states:

"Pickhard was an All-American choice in 1926 and an All-Southern Conference selection in 1926-27. He played on national championship teams in 1925 and 1926 and was captain of the 1927 squad. Perhaps the biggest play of the year in 1926 was Pickhard’s block of a fourth-quarter punt by Sewanee that Bama recovered for a safety to win 2-0 which kept Bama perfect en route to a Rose Bowl berth. Against LSU the very next week, Pickhard blocked two more punts for touchdowns. Only 16 punts were blocked for scores in 1926 and Pickhard had three of them."



University of Alabama 1925 National Championship Team
(Fred Pickhard pictured middle row, center)



Fred was selected as the "Rose Bowl Player of the Game" in the 1926 National Championship game, in which Alabama tied Stanford 7-7 (the last Rose Bowl to end in a tie).

In 1938 Fred moved to Oregon, where he married Lucille Hoober and together they had 3 children. Only son Fred, III, went on to play Left End for Michigan, playing in the 1951 Rose Bowl, where his Wolverines beat the California Golden Bears 14-6.

Fred Jr. retired from Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. as a service manager in 1971. He died on April 11, 1993 and is buried at Portland Memorial Mausoleum. He was survived by his wife of 53 years, his three children and nine grandchildren.

Amelia Helmetag Pickhard


AMELIA G. HELMETAG
Wife of FREDERICK W. PICKHARD
Born Dec. 24, 1862      Died Dec. 4, 1898 
Our Baby
AMALIE ST. JOHN,
Aged 3 months and 6 days.
OF SUCH IS THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.

Amelia, the first wife of Frederick William Pickhard (Fred Pickhard, Jr.'s father), was the cousin of my great-great Grandfather Charles Frederick Horst (1856-1912). Her mother Wilhelmina, later called Amelia, and Charles' father Martin immigrated with their father Johan Eckhard Horst (1802-1852), Eckhard's second wife Elisa Geiss (1817-1852), and three other siblings, from their home in Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany, arriving in New York on August 7, 1846. Amelia Horst married William Helmetag in 1861 and they had 5 children. William, also an immigrant from Germany, was a shoemaker by trade. They lived in Mobile.

  

William and Amelia's first child, Amelia was born on Christmas Eve, 1862. The date of her wedding to Frederick Pickhard is unknown. Frederick was a carpenter for the L & N Railroad during their marriage. They had a daughter, Amalie St. John Pickhard - exactly when is unknown. Amalie lived 3 months and 6 days. Amelia Pickhard died on December 4, 1898. Mother and daughter are buried together at Magnolia Cemetery in Mobile. Their grave seems very solitary, no one next to them, under a small tree. Frederick remarried around 1902. His wife Stella Guise was Amelia's first cousin. Frederick is buried next to Stella in Mobile's Pine Crest Cemetery.