FRIEDA EVANS

Frieda (Krause, Kunschke) Evans

After an impressive 102 years, Frieda Alma Minnie Ida Evans, (née Krause, Kunschke) passed on February 24, 2023. Born in Gresham, Wisconsin on the Winter Solstice of 1920, the first years of Frieda's well-lived life are not easily imaginable today. Navigating the Krause homestead at the time, one would quickly stumble upon the family cow, many canaries, a pen of pigs, some chickens, a team of horses (Fan and George), and Spike, the family's legendary canine. 

Although her parents were born in Wisconsin, the family only spoke German. Frieda learned English once enrolled in school when she was four. Her formal education ended in 1934—not only because the school burned down the June after she completed 8th Grade—but because the nearest high school at the time was a distant 16 miles away, in far off Shawano. 

By that time Frieda's informal education had already begun. When she wasn't helping care for her sister Virginia, she was encountering the likes of Baby Face Nelson, whom she always claimed once bought her and her friends ice cream while his gang cased the bank safe in Gresham. When she hadn't been tagging along with her father, Emil, as he helped rebuild the Lutheran Church in Shawano or grade the roads throughout the county, or at the logging camp, Frieda shadowed her mother, a midwife, Lydia. With skills she picked up on their weeks-long adventures, Frieda herself became a midwife for a number of years, until she started slinging coffee and serving eggs in her Uncle Herman's Star Restaurant in Shawano. 

By 1938, Frieda would marry Ervin Kunschke, and the two would settle in Clintonville, where he worked making powdered milk at Borden's. Erv enlisted in the navy a few years later and was stationed in Virginia Beach while Frieda remained in Clintonville, working as one of only two women employed (at that time) at the Four Wheel Drive Auto Company, where she helped manufacture trucks for the war effort. After Erv's return from the service, Frieda gave birth to Jonnie Lanea in 1947, who soon passed away from respiratory complications, and later, birth to Joy Lynn in 1949. The couple relocated to Ogema, Wisconsin after Erv had secured a loan to purchase the Omega Creamery. In 1952, in a house about twenty miles away, in Phillips, Frieda gave birth to her third daughter, Judy Lu.

After returning to Shawano with her two daughters in the mid 1950s, Frieda worked at Kroll's peeling potatoes for 20 cents a plate and would occasionally go out dancing at the Rustic Resort or the Broadview. In 1956, Frieda married Delmore “Runt” Evans. Through the late 1950s and 1960s, Frieda would bartend and waitress at several well-known spots,  like Stan & Buds, the Light Resort and the North Shore.  Serving locals, tourists, and a number of Green Bay Packers and their head coach, Frieda would often work alongside Delmore “Runt” Evans, until his death in 1965. 

Frieda spent much of the 1970s and early 80s working as an in-home caregiver to a number of prominent families in Milwaukee, until moving in with her daughter and her family in 1983. She spent the rest of her life living in Neenah.

Frieda is survived by her daughter Judy (John) Lautenschlager. Grandchildren: Scott (Kim) Krueger, Peter (Kimberly) Krueger, Jamie (Ken) Usterbowski, Chris Lautenschlager (April Hamlin), and Joshua (Sarah) Lautenschlager, many Great-Grandchildren, and Great-Great Grandchildren. She is preceded in death by Delmore Evans; parents Emil Krause and Lydia (Duwe) Krause, sisters Dora Bartlein and Virginia Moesch, an infant brother and brother Harvey Krause, and her daughters, Jonnie Kunschke and Joy Krueger. 

A visitation is scheduled for March 11, 2023,  9-11 a.m. Service at 11:00 at Westgor Funeral Home in Neenah. The family would like to especially thank the staff at Matthews of Neenah where Frieda lived and thrived the past 9 years, and thank you to Promedica Hospice for the recent quality care given. And a big thank you to Christopher for giving people a glimpse into Frieda's long and well-lived life. A memorial fund will be established.