Arthur Oscar Freudenberg came from a large family. He had 14 other siblings of which eight others survived into adulthood.

He was born in Hoboken, NJ and later his family moved to Jersey City, NJ. His father was Max Freudenberg, an immigrant from Berlin, Germany who come over in the 1880s. Max worked for an insurance company. His mother was Eloise Lindauer. Eloise was the child of Charles Frederick Lindauer, who was born in Philadelphia. Charles’ father was an immigrant who came from Strasbourg, Alsace on his honeymoon in the 1840s. 

The Lindauers were listed as policy dealers, and later Charles was a cigar dealer. The Lindauers moved to Rye, NY and may have run a hotel.

 One of Eloise’s brothers was a trapeze artist at Playland in Rye. Arthur seemed very independent at an early age, I have some of his postcards where his siblings are asking if he will be coming home for the weekend. In 1923 he wrote a one page vanity biography that was published in Daniel Van Winkle’s “History of the Municipalities of Hudson County, New Jersey”. He first worked at Street and Smith, the publishing company in the mailroom, where he saved all the airmail and first class stamps that came in, all the stamps in my collection from around 1910 are from him. 

He later worked in insurance and had a real estate business. His partner was Saedler and the company was Freudenberg and Saedler. He taught Sunday School at Waverly Congregational Church and in 1914 he married Maria Winblad. 

They had three children, Naida Muriel Freudenberg, Selma Louise Freudenberg (1921- ) and Helen Eloise Freudenberg (1928-1987). Arthur was a womanizer, and around 1928 he ran off with another woman, some say she was a burlesque stripper, and abandoned his family to the Great Depression. 

In 1961 he joined the family for Easter dinner and a series of photographs were taken. Maria and Arthur never divorced, but he never gave any money to the family. He owned several buildings and houses in Jersey City and owned a summer house in Keansburg, NJ down the shore. 

Source: Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 
Sunday, March 23, 2003 in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

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