Minnie, who was also called Minna by some, was baptized January 6, 1879, probably in St. Kiliani church in Hōxter. Sponsors were Heinrich Freise, Wilhelmine Freise, Minna Freise and Luise v Stranz. Her brother Paul recalls her birthday as December 5, 1878, and the church archivist in Bielefeld confirms that, but Minnie herself writes that she was born December 15, 1878.

Notes by Paul Freise:

In the church archives in Bielefeld, Westphalia, Germany, Minnie's full given name is Wilhelmine Friederike Luise Hedwig Freise. She was about three when her parents came from Germany to America and about five when they homesteaded near New Salem, North Dakota.

Minnie helped with the chores and, when older, took care of chickens and cattle. Because there were no fences to contain the cattle and because of infrequent Indian scares (which never materialized), she sometimes had cause to worry. When a little older she worked for a ranch family a number of miles to the south. She became able to do almost any type of work and to cope with practically any situation. She might wish to ride to Sweetbriar for the mail and would have to go on a half-broke horse, but she would make the journey without fear.

She realized, however, that she needed to prepare herself for a life away from the farm. So she came to Bismarck (about 30 miles to the east) and worked as a domestic. She also arranged for some tutoring because her education thus far had all been in a country school. She had ambitions to become a nurse. It should be noted that the Bismarck Hospital was being built then; it was to include a nurses' training school with certain minimum qualifications. So Minnie studied with a tutor and raised her educational background to that standard.

In 1908 Minnie was admitted to the first class in nurses' training at the Bismarck Hospital; she graduated with that class in the spring of 1912 as a diploma nurse. Immediately she was employed at the Quain and Ramstead Clinic in Bismarck and at various times by the Bismarck Hospital, where she assumed a variety of duties, chiefly as an anesthetist and operating room supervisor.

Minnie was a very adequate nurse, well-trained by the standards of that time, and conscientious. She had an aggressive, dominant personality so became an ideal supervisor. That personality was evident in her personal life too. Because she favored education, she strongly influenced younger members of her family to stay in school as long as possible. She particularly encouraged her younger brother Paul to go to medical school.

During World War I, Bismarck Hospital organized a hospital unit to be sent to France to care for sick and wounded soldiers. Minnie was to take part. When the plan was submitted for approval, however, Minnie was excluded because she had been born in Germany. This was a disappointment to her, so she joined the Red Cross and was sent to Camp Fremont in California. She enjoyed that duty and California life too. So for a few years after the war she worked again as a nurse in Bismarck, but her attachment to North Dakota waned. In about 1925 she decided to live in California instead.

She first did some private nursing there, then was superintendent of a hospital in Bakersfield, and then developed her own small maternity hospital, also in Bakersfield. Run very scrupulously and successfully, this hospital had a terrific impact on that area. She was financially successful too.

In time she retired and sold the hospital. It was then, about 1950-51, that she married a retired gentleman named J. C. Flickinger (perhaps James) and made plans to travel extensively. Too soon, however, she suffered a severe cerebral hemorrhage and, on December 19, 1953, she expired. One could say she had a successful career and a beneficial influence on many.

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Notes by Minnie Freise, written about 1930

"Since I was less than a year old when I came to America with my parents [other sources suggest she was two or three because her brother Hugo, 17 months younger, was also born before the family left Höxter], it seems almost strange to say that my birthplace was the little town of Höxter in Westphalia, Germany. My birthday was December 15th [1878].

"My parents were Bertha Mecke [Minnie uses the name Mecke because Bertha Kalinke's mother was later married for a second time to a man named Mecke] and Herman Freise, both of German nationality. My father was a printer by trade. Upon arriving in America, the family came immediately to St. Louis where father followed his line of work. They were soon caught by the glamour of new worlds to conquer, frontier life, and vast expanse of lands in the Middle West. Therefore, as soon as a colony was organized in St. Louis [others say the family had first moved to Chicago and came west with a group of Chicago Lutherans] they joined and became Middle Western pioneers, settling on a farm near New Salem, North Dakota. In this locality I grew to womanhood.

"I decided to enter nurse's training and it happened that I was the first probationer to enter the new Bismarck Hospital [school of nursing]. Several years thereafter, in fact in February of 1912, I was graduated from the training school. I immediately took charge of the surgery department. The years rolled by with me in that capacity until 1917. Somehow I could not leave the surgery. For the next six months I was anaesthetist for Drs. Quain and Ramstad at the Bismarck Hospital.

"By this time the war had become a reality. The United States had joined, and everywhere there was a call for nurses. Finally, during the spring of the second year of the United States' entrance into the war, I enlisted on March 6, 1918, at Bismarck, North Dakota. What a privilege to be sent to Camp Fremont at Palo Alto, California. Much to my delight I was put on general duty in the ward, but only for two short weeks. After that I became assistant to the chief nurse, Miss Gill. Soon, however, I was to teach anaesthetics to the nurses who were being sent overseas. Somehow it seemed my niche. That really was a bit of a disappointment in that it kept me here in America, and I was not to be sent overseas.

"Camp life was most enjoyable. The pleasant associations shall never be forgotten. How we enjoyed California climate and those beautiful surroundings. Our location was excellent with Stanford University in Palo Alto and San Francisco, the city of many charms, only a few miles distant.

"After my discharge in 1919 I came back to the surgery department at the Bismarck Hospital for one more year. California sunshine was magnetic and the next seven years found me at Bakersfield, California, in charge of the San Joaquin Hospital.

"Three years ago I established the only maternity home in Kern County managed by a graduate nurse. Last October I moved to a new location, 721 - 8th Street, Bakersfield, with better facilities to accommodate my patients. [In about 1930 Minnie took over the already existing Palm Maternity Home at that address in Bakersfield.] Today, I am employing only registered nurses and I am enjoying a good business.

"As for my fraternal connections, I am a member of the State Nurses Association, Kern County Nurses Association, Women's Club and Zonta Club."


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About the Freise Maternity Hospital
In 2003, the building that was known as the Freise Maternity Hospital still exists at 721 - 8th Street in Bakersfield, California 93304. In a 2023 Google street view, above the door one can still read “Freise Hope House.”

For some reason, the hospital was still listed in a 2001 website called the California Maternity Hospital Codes (http://www.avss.ucsb.edu/MANUALS/HOSPCOD1.htm). But actually it had already become the "Exodus House at The Freise Inn, a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center that recently opened in the heart of one of the city's high-crime areas." See this newspaper article dated Feb. 19, 2001: (http://www.ebcoalition.org/Articals/02-19-01%20Changing%20lives%20daily.htm).

How did that happen? Another website reveals part of the story; it tells of a 1998 meeting where the county board voted to cooperate in a Restoration Community Project -- the so-called Freise Inn Project (http://www.co.kern.ca.us/clerk/minutes/7-6-98.htm).

It turns out that a group of spirited church and community people had seen the need for a center to help homeless, battered and addicted women and their children. Through much hard work over several years, they have made the Freise Maternity Hospital into a place where needy women can today experience a "rebirth" into a new life of health and well-being. John Windh and Elsa Freise Windh visited the center on April 1, 2003, and were profoundly impressed by the facility (photos below) and particularly by its professional and loving staff. Minnie Freise would be so pleased. Suitably, the center's brochure features on its cover a 1950 photo of Minnie holding a newborn baby.

An unrelated genealogy site ((http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~ecfeil/gw...dren1.html#janetfeil) tells of a Janet Elizabeth Nunn who was born (perhaps in the early 1940s) at "Miss Freise's Maternity Home, Bakersfield, Kern Co., California."

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In June of 2010, John Windh received two interesting emails from Jim Mandaville of Tucson, Arizona, telling of his own connection with the Freise Maternity Hospital, as follows:

June 18, 2010
I was intrigued to find your story of Minnie Freise online today. Miss Freise (as we always used the name) took over the Palm Maternity Home at 721 8th St. from my great-grandmother, Flora A. Henry, who had been a midwife and a school teacher and had founded, built and operated the place after the death of her husband, Charles W. Henry in 1923. She called it the Palm Maternity Home. I attach a photo of the place as it was then. I believe I myself was born in Miss Freise's Maternity Home in 1935 (but must double check that). At one time, when I was a schoolboy living on the Henry and Newcomb property next door at 725 8th St., my bedroom was just across the driveway that ran along the west side of the hospital. I remember one summer around 1945, when the windows were all open (nobody had air conditioning yet around there) and I was awakened by cries from the hospital labor room! I told my mother about it in the morning and she said she was going to tell them to "close those windows at night."

Jim Mandaville, son of Maxine R. Newcomb, granddaughter of Flora A. Henry of the Palm Maternity Home (of which a photo is attached), now in Tucson, Arizona.

June 22, 2010
I have checked my birth certificate and find that I was indeed born in Miss Freise's Maternity Home at 5:45 PM on 6 March 1935, Dr. Moore attending.

Jim Mandaville, Tucson, AZ

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In January of 2018, another writer emailed me [John Windh] of her great aunt who was a graduate of the Bismarck Hospital nursing program. When she “went to Bakersfield in 1939 to visit her niece, a graduate of the BH program, there were 35 nurses working there from the BH school!” Amazing.

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From an unknown {Bakersfield, California?) newspaper on about Dec. 17, 1953

Death came last night to Minnie Freise Flickinger, known to thousands of men and women she helped bring into the world.

"Miss Freise," as she was familiarly known to most Kern County residents, suffered a stroke two weeks ago and lapsed to into a coma. She died in Mercy Hospital in her 70th year.

Funeral services have been he scheduled for 10 a.m. Saturday in the chapel of the Armstrong-Flickinger Mortuary. The Rev. R. J. Jagels of St. John's Lutheran Church will officiate. Interment will follow in Union Cemetery.

Mrs. Flickinger served as a nurse in World War I, traveling throughout the nation to instruct Red Cross groups. She came to Bakersfield as superintendent of San Joaquin Hospital and later operated the Allen Maternity Home on K Street.

New Name
In 1935 she took over the ownership of a maternity home at 721 8th St., renaming it Miss Freise's Maternity Home. In 1950 it became a hospital. Last January 1st ithe hospital changed ownership. Present owners are Thomas A. and Eugenia Timmons. Mrs. Timmons operates the hospital. Her husband is a compositor with The Californian.

The deceased was a charter member of the Zonta club and a one-time member of the Bakersfield Business and Professional Women’s Club. She was a member of St. John’s Lutheran Church and was known for her generous charitable donations.

From Dakotas
She was a native of Bismarck, N.D. Survivors include her widower, J. C. Flickinger of 910 T St.; two brothers, Dr. Paul Freise of Bismarck, N.D., and Charles Freise of New Salem, N.D.; three sisters, Gertrude of Grangeville, Utah, Annie of New Salem, N.D., and Othilda of Valejo; and many nephews and nieces.

Miss Freise was married for the first time last March. She followed the careers of thousands of babies born in her maternity home and recorded many who grew up, were married and, in turn, had their babies born in Miss Freise's Maternity Huspital. At present an estimated 110 babies are born each month in the hospital that bears her name.

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from an unknown record of military service
FREiSE, MINNIE H. Army number, none; not a registrant, army nurse; born, Hexter, Germany, Dec. 15, 1885; naturalized citizen; occupation, nurse; enlisted in the Army Nurse Corps, at Bismarck, on March 6, 1918; assigned to Base Hospital, Camp Fremont, Calif.; to discharge. Released from active duty at Camp Fremont, Calif., on April 3, 1919, as an Army Nurse.