Ellen Jeanette Tutty Fruendt went to be with her Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, on Saturday, February 3, 2018. She was born on February 4, 1927 in Detroit, Michigan to Samuel Henry and Lillian Sophia Augusta (Schroeder) Tutty. She began her education at 5-years-old by attending “primmer”, a county school from 1932-1933, and then a Lutheran school in Detroit until 1934, followed by a public school until 1936.

She moved from Detroit to a farm given to her mother outside of Okarche, Oklahoma with her parents and brother, Roland, on July 26, 1936. 1936 would go down in Oklahoma’s history as its hottest summer recorded to date. The hot summer was tough on the new farm family, and was compounded when Ellen and her brother contracted Malaria from infected water. The effects of malaria lingered in Ellen as a young girl as she struggled through various childhood illnesses, including two types of measles, chicken pox, whooping cough, and tonsillitis. The family lived in a rental house until a basement was dug on the farmland and a house was moved onto the foundation. Electricity came to the farm in 1938. Ellen walked about a mile each day to a county school from 5th through 8th grade. In 1940, she lived with her cousin during the week and attended Kingfisher High School until 1942. When a school bus route was established in 1943, she moved back to the farm and graduated Salutatorian in 1945 from Okarche High School.

Ellen met Herman Emil Fruendt in 1948 during a summer session at Camp Lutherhoma near Tahlequah, Oklahoma. They met again in 1950 and courted for two years. Pastor Paul Hoyer officiated at the wedding ceremony when she married Herman in Okarche’s St. John’s Lutheran Church on May 1, 1952. She and Herman’s passion for farm living complemented each other as a couple. They moved to the Fruendt family farm southwest of Guthrie, Oklahoma where they started a Grade-A dairy farm with 40 cows in 1954. For the next 22 years, while Herman was farming in the sandy red soil of Logan County, Ellen tended to the dairy, until they sold their cows and equipment in 1976. Ellen loved caring for farm animals and made pets out of most of their 50-cow herd.

In 1965, their only son, Karl Herman Fruendt, was born. He was their pride and joy whom they loved very much. Their love grew even larger upon the birth and later adoption of four grandchildren, whom they also loved having on the farm for visits and tractor rides.

Shortly before selling the dairy cows in 1974, Ellen turned her interests into raising and milking dairy goats, both purebred and cross breeds. She had a herd of nearly 20 goats in the 1980s and cared for them until 1998. Despite being born and living in the big city of Detroit, Michigan, Ellen preferred living the farm life in central Oklahoma where she grew to eventually like the weather, but only after 75 years. Even though she enjoyed raising and caring for large and small livestock, her favorite animals were cats, whom she loved and cared for up until a few years before her death.

She was preceded in death by her husband of 54 years, Herman E. Fruendt, in 2006, her mother Lillian Tutty in 1960, her father, Samuel Tutty in 1977, and her brother, Roland, in 2011. Ellen is survived by her son, Lt Colonel Karl H. Fruendt, (USAF) and his wife Patricia A. Brooke-Fruendt of Topeka, Kansas, and four grandchildren; Georgia SueEllen Fruendt, Emily Rose Fruendt, Alexander Vitali Fruendt of Edmond, Oklahoma, and Jonathan Victor Fruendt of also of Topeka, Kansas.

Funeral Services for Ellen will be held at 10:00 AM, Friday, February 9, 2018 at Zion Lutheran Church with The Reverend W.R. Rains officiating. Interment will follow at Summit View Cemetery. Services are under the direction of Smith-Gallo Funeral Home. Pallbearers will be nephews Ralph Fruendt, Paul Fruendt, Kevin Fruendt, Carl Karner, Kevin Tutty and Herman Wittie.

Visitation will be held Thursday, 12:00-8:00 PM, with family greeting friends from 4:00-7:00 PM.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to the Ellen Fruendt Memorial Fund located at Zion Lutheran Church 424 E. Warner Street in Guthrie 73044.

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