Interview with Howard L Frysinger July 14, 1979
(Howard was 100 at that time, any editorial comment that does not bear my initials; WNF, was made by the people who recorded the original interview.  I have also attempted to retain their grammar and punctuation.)

The Frysinger Reunions
"When we had these clan reunions, we had a number of ministers in the clan. We had a regular program. We had a number of people in the organization who were church organists. We always had a musical program and we always had a religious service, a prayer and a talk by this minister. But they gradually died out and a new generation didn't come out to the reunion … at Zion's View.
“We always had these reunions on the last Saturday in July, after a lot of these member farmers had got their crops away and had time off to come to this reunion.
"Sam Frysinger was a son of my uncle Andrew Frysinger. He married Ellen Frysinger who was a daughter of my uncle Jacob. Between them they had nine daughters and three sons. And after Sam died, on Father's Day, this clan would get together at this place in Madden? Lancaster County, honoring Sam for the Father's Day. Well, they had something like 150 in the crowd. They objected to having two reunions, the Father's Day and the regular Frysinger Reunion. So the people from York County objected to coming over to Lancaster County and the regular Frysinger Reunion just fell through. What Eberly has is this Father's Day side.
"We went over to a couple of those. They didn't have any program. The boys "lent out and played ball, they had a picnic lunch and that’s all they had. They didn't have any program at all. We had a regular organization. We had a president, and a secretary.
“Margaret was secretary (Margaret Baker of York, Pa.)  She’d take down everybody who was at the reunion and print it in a paper in York. She saw to it.”
Howard's Father Daniel
"My father was in the Civil War, at the battle of Fort Stedman.  They made a charge. A fellow along side of father he tripped, somehow, and said to father, 'my God I'm shot!  Daddy grabbed him by the arm and said, ‘No you're not shot. Let's go!'
Well Daddy earned a corporal of Company D for his service at Fort Stedman.
In one of the reunions at Zion's View, at this band hall, I saw a man come up, walk up, Father looked at me and said, 'My God, there comes Greenewalt.' He was the guy who was in the battle of Fort Stedman. They had a good old time. I remember that.
Kay F: Going back to the reunion, Sam's wife was a first cousin, then?
“Yeah, that's right. She was a first cousin.

More Civil War stories
"Sam, Andrew and Daddy (Daniel R.) were in the Civil war. Three brothers.
My uncle that lived up at that store, that corner house - remember where I told you? He had a very fine riding horse. He had the horse up at his place during that period when the Confederates were in that section of the country. So my mother and her younger brother Lewis went up to Eli to get this horse. On their way back with the horse, the boy was riding the horse, my mother was leading the horse, two Confederate soldiers came out of the woods and stopped them. They wanted the horse. Mother started to cry and they let them go.
They took the horse down to my grandfather's barn where they had a box stall. They laid some rails and planks across the top of the stall, and put hay over that. Put the horse in the stall and when the Confederates came through there, they didn't see any horse.
Shaking Lincoln's hand
"My father was working for a man named Elias Good, on a farm there. He was sent to York with a two-horse wagon to get some feed for the horses. He passed by the court house in York and saw this big sign that the Governor of Pennsylvania wanted 100,000 volunteers, I think it was. Daddy tied the horses to a post and he saw a neighbor come walking up the street. He said, 'Here, you take these horses, this team back to Elias Good. I'm going to Harrisburg.'
"He went up to Harrisburg and enlisted and I don't think he got home (right away). He was sent on down to City Point and he shook Abraham Lincoln's hand in August, 1864.
"I have a granddaughter up in the country of New Hampshire. She was quite a bug on Abraham Lincoln. I went up to see her when she was about 11 or 12 or 13 years old. I'd shake hands with somebody and she'd say, 'you just shook the hand, that shook the hand, that shook the hand of Abraham Lincoln.' Susie would always say it. (Roared with laughter.)
"I shook hands with Mrs. Bridges. Mrs. Bridges was the wife of Stiles Bridges who was senator from New Hampshire. She told Mrs. Bridges the story and Mrs. Bridges got quite a chuckle out of it!
"Daddy was at Appomattox when Lee surrendered. He was in the war from August, 1864 to May 1865 when he was discharged. He went through that Richmond campaign.
Ludwig’s John
"John was Ludwig's oldest son. He left Dauphin County and moved to Dover. He's buried at Stray-er's church in Dover somewhere. My father told me when we lived in York County that there was a Frysinger buried in that cemetery. But as a boy, I wasn't interested. I think he left $50 to the church to take care of his grave.

Ludwig Frysinger
"He was a stone mason, by trade. You see, these Quaker families in Philadelphia, I forget the names of them, I discovered that in a Lebanon County book. They had agents over in Germany, enlisting these German boys to come over here. They'd bring these boys over here and these boys couldn't speak a word of English. They were mistreated on board and everything that was done to them that was possible in those days. They landed and the only thing they had was the clothing on their back. Then the captain of the boat would rent them out til their passage was paid and often much more. Whether Ludwig was one of those, I don't know, I couldn't discover that.
"He was a mason. He built walls and that kind of thing. Yes, that (information) was passed down. I think I got it from John's family. He must have farmed his 37 1/2 acres over there in York County.  Jacob I think (Ludwig's son) was a weaver, one of those that knows how to weave, their own clothes and that sort of thing.
William, the carpet manufacturer
"My father knew William. We lived in York County til I was about 10 then we moved over to Lancaster County. Then we lost a lot of contact with the York County people. But my father knew William who had the carpet (factory) in York. William did something else before he took up carpeting. My father used to go visit him in York. He lived about 7 miles north of York. He would go in to visit with William. (He descended down from Ludwig’s George)
Ludwig's son George, the wagon maker
"George moved to Hanover. He built the Conestoga wagons, I have something on that at home. In the War of 1812, he was captain of a company that took part in a battle, somewhere, I don't have that at the tip of my tongue. I have that at home. I'll dig that out. I have something from William Maslin Frysinger.
Myth of the Three Brothers
"William fell for that story that there were three brothers. The three brothers are John, Gottlieb and Ludwig , One went east, and the other went south and the other stayed. Wiley Kear said something about a John Frysinger in the census of 1790. Well that was Ludwig's son John. He was in Dauphin County, then. Later on he moved back to Dover in York County. He died there. William Maslin fell for that story. A lot of people fell for that that there were three bothers came over. 
(Just a thought, but could the story actually be set in Germany rather than America with one brother going to Eastern Europe (where most German immigrants went), one to America and one staying in Germany.  This would make the story that the family came from Bavaria more likely because the Danube goes from Bavaria to the Black Sea making for a good route east. WNF)
Jim F: Why did that story come up?
“That was a common story in those days. A lot of people had that idea that three brothers came over. Maslin wasn’t the only one. A lot of people fell for that stuff that three brothers came over. I was able to find Daniel Frysinger on one of the ships that came over but I lost track of him. Well somebody said that a lot of those German people went down to South Carolina. I tried to research stuff in South Carolina but I couldn't find anything about Frysingers down in South Carolina. The only Frysingers I could find were Ludwig and the descendants of Ludwig and the people who moved out to Ohio and Indiana. Back in, I don't know how many years ago it was , I found some Frysingers in telephone books in Chicago. They spelled it Frei. There was a skater, a famous skater. I think there were eight of them (Freisingers) in Chicago at that time. Edward Burrall Freisinger was in the real estate business in Chicago in the 1830s. I think he had a son called Edward Burrall III. He might still be living.
(Others have also found Daniel Frysinger on a boat from Germany but nothing later, see http://frisinger.net/genealogy/frisinger/daniel.html WNF)
(The Chicago Freisingers were descended from Ludwig's Peter).
Quickel’s Church Records
"There are records at Quickel's Church that Elmer (Howard's uncle) researched that were in bad shape 50 years ago. I don't think anybody could find them by now. Everything was in German script and Elmer did the best he could. He could find the date of birth but not the date of death. Now, Mrs. Gehres (genealogist) has been needling me about when these people died. I told her before that there's no record of it, no record of it. She's a joiner! (laughing).
Ludwig Frysinger (con't)
"Ludwig, as my grandfather Jacob said, his grandfather had one leg shorter than the other. He walked with a cane. Now whether that happened in his old age of not, I don't know. You see when you're a youngster - as a young fellow I should have asked a lot of these questions, but you don't think of that when you're nine or ten years old. That's when I should have asked these questions.
“Ludwig was in the muster roll of a fellow named Heh-nigh-zee. He and (his son) John. From 1818 to '53 (?) they were headed (?) for these muster rolls. They'd get out every once and a while, every week or two, to drill. Some of them had rifles, some of them had broomsticks. But they would go out and drill as sort of a home guard, a home militia. And Ludwig would miss some of these drills. They would find him for being absent from the drills (laughing). I think his captain was Heh-nigh-zer.  (Spelled “zer” here and “zee” above in the original WNF)
Zion's View Frysinger Reunions
"(They were held) at a band hall. In those days pretty much every little town had their own band, you know. They built this band hall out of concrete block. They had facilities in there for cooking. They had a piano. It was a very nice place to meet. We used to get 200 or more people in there. With a 100 descendants from Jacob, you could see, I don't know how much they spread. The last time I counted, they had 140, that would turn out for this Father's Day reunion.
Howard’s middle "Name"
"By middle letter, I've always had trouble with it. I don't have a middle name, I just have a letter.  Howard L Frysinger.  I had a lot of trouble when it came to my retirement. They wanted to know the middle name. I didn't have it. The family bible just says Howard L. And I didn't have a birth certificate. I came to work for the Reading Railroad for 54 years. When I retired under the Railroad Retirement Board, they wanted my birth certificate. I didn't have a birth certificate.

But out in Kansas City they have a record of the census. It cost me $3 to get that and on it it's Howard L Frysinger. I was in the census of 1880, Howard L Frysinger. (His parents did not name him with his mother's maiden name Quickel for a middle name because they didn't think Howard Q. Frysinger sounded right.)
Ludwig's Homestead Land
(Ludwig's land stayed in the Frysinger family until 1916. If he ever made a million dollars, Howard said he was going to buy the land and build a nice retirement home for Frysingers on the site. )