Mr. Friedrich Willi Moggert

July 29, 1927 – November 19, 2011

It is with sadness the Moggert family announces the sudden but peaceful passing of our father, Friedrich (Fred) Willi Moggert on November 19th in Calgary, Alberta at the age of 84. Fred was the last of eight children born into the family of Heinrich and Johanna Moggert. Fred was predeceased by his wife Erika (Kühnert) in 1996, his parents and his siblings; Johann, Gerhard, Dietrich, Heinrich, Christine, Gerda and Johanna. Fred is survived by his four children, Brigitte (Jim) Broadfield, Hans (Wanda), Reiner (Danielle) and Christine, and his four grandchildren, Ryan and Tighe Moggert and Jeremy and Larissa Broadfield; all of Calgary. Fred was born in Bentheim, Germany; a small town near the Dutch border along the main rail line from the Netherlands to Berlin. Given the proximity of the railroad and the demands of the Second World War, it was natural for Fred to seek employment with the railroad at a young age. Fred entered the German Army in the summer of 1944 at the age of seventeen and served with the Panzergrenadier Regiment Grossdeutschland. He was wounded on four different occasions and with a permanent disability to his left arm, returned home in the spring of 1945 where he resumed work with the railroad. It was on the night when Fred was sent to fetch the midwife to assist in the birth of neighbor’s child that Fred met his future wife, Erika, who was living with her aunt, the midwife. Fred and Erika were married in Germany on April 6, 1951. In March of 1952 they immigrated to Canada on board the Canadian Pacific ship Beaverbrae and made their way across the country by rail to Turin, Alberta to work the sugar beet farms but eventually making their way to Calgary in 1953 to start their family. Despite his limited English, Fred enrolled in the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology and became a journeyman carpenter. Fred worked on many of Calgary’s boom time landmarks before retiring as a result of disabilities. Fred and Erika both loved camping and many days of the camping season were spent in Kananaskis Country or the Bugaboos of British Columbia. The family wishes to express their gratitude for the care afforded to Fred by the staff of Clifton Manor Unit 500 with particular note to his “favorite nurse” Karen. It was Fred’s wish that no memorial service be held. A private family service will be held in Kananaskis Country at a later date. If friends so desire, memorial tributes may be made to the Calgary Zoological Society of which Fred was one of the few remaining “life time” members, or to the William Watson Lodge Society, Box 30344, Chinook Postal Outlet, 6455 Macleod Trail South, Calgary, Alberta T2V 0G6.