Elizabeth Christ Trump (born Elisabeth Christ; ; October 10, 1880 – June 6, 1966) was a German-American businesswoman and the paternal grandmother of

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...

, the 45th president of the United States. She married Frederick Trump in 1902. They had three children,

Fred Fred may refer to: People * Fred (name), including a list of people and characters with the name Mononym * Fred (cartoonist) (1931–2013), pen name of Fred Othon Aristidès, French * Fred (footballer, born 1949) (1949–2022), Frederico Rod ...

John John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Secon ...

, and Elizabeth (later Mrs. Walters). Her husband died in 1918, requiring the 37-year-old widow to manage their properties. She co-founded the real estate development company E. Trump & Son with her son Fred, the father of Donald Trump.

Early life

Elizabeth Trump was born as Elisabeth Christ in Kallstadt,

Kingdom of Bavaria The Kingdom of Bavaria (german: Königreich Bayern; ; spelled ''Baiern'' until 1825) was a German state that succeeded the former Electorate of Bavaria in 1805 and continued to exist until 1918. With the unification of Germany into the German ...

, the daughter of Philipp Christ by his wife Anna Maria Christ (née Anthon). While the family owned a little vineyard, the income from that was not adequate to meet their needs, and Philipp Christ worked as a

tinker Tinker or tinkerer is an archaic term for an itinerant tinsmith who mends household utensils. Description ''Tinker'' for metal-worker is attested from the thirteenth century as ''tyckner'' or ''tinkler''. Some travelling groups and Romani p ...

repairing and polishing old utensils and selling pots and pans. He ran his trade from his house on Freinsheimer Straße in Kallstadt, which was just across the street from the home of the Trump family, where Katharina Trump, an elderly widow, lived with her six children.

Marriage and family

Katharina Trump's son, Frederick Trump, had immigrated to America in 1885 at the age of 16 and made his fortune with restaurants and brothels in the Klondike Gold Rush. When he returned to Germany in 1901, he wooed Elisabeth over the objections of his mother, who felt that her prosperous son could and should find a bride from a wealthier and more refined family than that of Elisabeth. Nonetheless, Frederick proposed to Elisabeth, who accepted, and they were married on 26 August 1902. He was 33 years of age at the time and she was 21. Friedrich and Elisabeth moved to New York and they set up house in an apartment in the predominantly German quarter of

Morrisania Morrisania ( ) is a residential neighborhood in the southwestern Bronx, New York City, New York. Its boundaries are the Cross-Bronx Expressway to the north, Crotona-Prospect Avenue to the east, East 161st Street to the south, and Webster Avenue ...

the Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

. Elizabeth (as her name was spelled in the United States) kept house, while Frederick worked as a restaurant and hotel manager. Their first child, Elizabeth, was born on April 30, 1904. Despite living in a German neighborhood, Elizabeth was homesick. The family returned to Kallstadt in 1904, selling their assets in America. As the Bavarian authorities suspected he had left Germany to avoid war service in the Imperial Army, Frederick could not remain in Germany, so the family returned to the United States in 1905. Their second child,

, was born, and they set up house on 177th Street in the Bronx. After Elizabeth gave birth to her third child,

, the family moved to

Queens Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...

, where Frederick began to develop real estate. In 1918, he died of influenza during the

1918 flu pandemic The 1918–1920 influenza pandemic, commonly known by the misnomer Spanish flu or as the Great Influenza epidemic, was an exceptionally deadly global influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza A virus. The earliest documented case was ...

, leaving an estate valued at $31,359 (or approximately ). Trump was considered the matriarch of the

Trump family The family of Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021 and owner of The Trump Organization, is a prominent American family active in real estate, entertainment, business, and politics. Trump, his wife Melania, a ...

. She remained close to her son Fred for her entire life.

E. Trump & Son

Following the death of her husband, Elizabeth Trump continued the real estate business he had begun. She had contractors build houses on the empty lots Frederick had owned, sold the houses, and earned income off the mortgages she provided to buyers. Her vision was to have her three children continue the family business. Initially, she operated under the ungendered name "E. Trump." In 1924, she switched to "E. Trump & Son" for advertising purposes, then "Sons," then back to the singular when it became clear that only her first son, Fred, would join. In later interviews, Fred tended to put himself center stage, saying that he had always dreamt of being a builder; that he completed his first house in 1924, just one year out of high school; and that his mother only got involved because she was old enough to "sign checks." But there are indications that Fred actually started more slowly and Elizabeth contributed more, including capital. When the business was formally incorporated, in 1927, Fred was old enough to sign checks, but "E. Trump & Son" remained the name. "It was no misnomer," wrote biographer Wayne Barrett, "she was intimately involved in the business." Elizabeth Trump stayed involved in the family business throughout her life. In her 70s, she allegedly collected coins from the

laundromat A self-service laundry, coin laundry, laundromat, or coin wash is a facility where clothes are washed and dried without much personalized professional help. They are known in the United Kingdom as launderettes or laundrettes, and in the Unit ...

s in Trump buildings. Trump family biographer Gwenda Blair heard this from Elizabeth's grandchildren. However, this may only be a family parable, as it has been attached to others. According to Harry Hurt, Mary Trump, the wife of Elizabeth's son Fred, "drove back and forth between her husband's apartment projects in a Rolls-Royce, collecting coins from the washing machines in the laundry rooms." During his 2016 presidential campaign, Elizabeth's grandson

told a crowd in Staten Island that he had spent "probably five" boyhood summers there collecting coins from his father's laundry machines.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Trump, Elizabeth Christ 1880 births 1966 deaths American real estate businesspeople American women business executives American business executives Bavarian emigrants to the United States Businesspeople from New York City People from Bad Dürkheim (district)

Elizabeth Elizabeth or Elisabeth may refer to: People * Elizabeth (given name), a female given name (including people with that name) * Elizabeth (biblical figure), mother of John the Baptist Ships * HMS ''Elizabeth'', several ships * ''Elisabeth'' (sch ...