Freidrich Reisert was born in 1826 at Huenfeld, Hesse-Cassel, the son of a butcher. In 1841he emigrated alone to New York and eventually became a butcher in the German quarter of Manhattan. Around 1849, he married Margaretha (Meta) Knoblauch and they had two children while in New York City.

Beginning in 1850 Freidrich began speculating in land in the Fosters Meadow vicinity. In 1854 he bought a farm in Valley Stream and moved his family. Two more children were born there but Meta died around 1858. While running a farm and having four motherless children under the age of seven, Freidrich soon married Catharina Schmidt from Brooklyn. They had three more children.

When Freidrich died in 1873 Catharina inherited the farm and moved her three children back to Brooklyn. However, three of his children by his first wife remained in the area. Joseph Reisert (b. 1852) married Anna Maria Reising and was a butcher in Hewlett. After her death in 1876 he married Anna Marie Wassmer. His five children were generally tradesmen in the area and two married into the Richter family, another family with Fosters Meadow roots.

Amelia Reisert (b. 1857) married Michael March, a farmer on Central Ave. Of there nine children, seven married into other Fosters Meadow families including one Hoeffner, one Hoffman, one Krummenacker and four Rottkamps.

Frederick Reisert (b. 1853) eventually bought his father’s farm from his step-mother. He married Anna Richter and their seventeen children populated the farm. A number of the children married other Fosters Meadow families including a Reising, a Muller, a Rottkamp and two Krummenackers.

The original farm left family hands in the 1920s and became Curtiss Airfield. Today you would know it as Green Acres Shopping Center.

Submitted by Paul Hoffman

Email: PWH115@Optonline.net