Grengs, Aloysius F. (Aloysius Fred), 1909-1997

Aloysius Fred Grengs was born in Dana, Saskatchewan, on July 12, 1909, the son of Frank and Rosalia Wermerskirchen Grengs. In 1913 the Grengs family moved to Minnesota, settling on a farm near St. Leo, Yellow Medicine County. When he wasn't needed to do work on the family farm, Grengs attended country school sporadically until the age of sixteen. He received the equivalent of a fifth or sixth grade education. German was the language spoken at home, and Grengs often found school difficult, particularly learning to read and write English. When he was ten years old he began doing farm work for others, plowing, planting, picking corn, hauling grain, and milling.

During the Great Depression of the 1930s Grengs moved around a great deal in search of work. He left home in 1929 and went to South Dakota. After working on a ranch near Belle Fourche for several months, he got a job on a farm near Sisseton. In 1931 he returned to Minnesota and performed various kinds of farm work in the Canby area of Yellow Medicine County. He took a body-building course by correspondence in 1932 from Joe Bonomo of Hollywood and began boxing in local matches. His interest in body-building continued throughout his life. In 1934 Grengs worked for the Civilian Conservation Corps (C.C.C.) at Sawbill Camp F-10, Tofte, Cook County, Minnesota. He then worked for his father, doing farm work and hauling gravel. On November 23, 1935, he married Mildred Thovson of Canby. In 1937 they had a son, the first of nine children. They were divorced in 1988.

During the next few years, Grengs worked at many jobs, mostly agricultural work and hauling. From 1936 to 1941 he sheared sheep. He worked as a truck driver for the Work Projects Administration (W.P.A.) at several Minnesota locations from 1937 to 1941. In 1941 the W.P.A. sent Grengs to California to work for the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, but he was rejected by Lockheed, because he had no birth certificate. At Tulelake, California, he got his first carpentry job working on the construction of an evacuation camp for Japanese-Americans. From California he moved to Oregon and Washington, where he worked at a variety of agricultural, factory, and construction jobs.

Grengs was called back to Canby, Minnesota, in 1943 by his local draft board to assist farmers with harvesting and threshing. From Canby he moved to St. Paul. He got a job with Minneapolis Moline Power Implement Company, where he remained until 1945, doing millwright work, carpentry, and brush painting. Grengs worked at several construction and maintenance jobs in the Twin Cities from 1945 to 1947.

In the fall of 1947 Grengs moved to Sisseton, South Dakota, where he rented a farmhouse and some land and spent a year farming. He returned to St. Paul in late 1948 and resumed working as a carpenter. He was a member of Local No. 87 of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America. From 1948 until his retirement in 1977, Grengs worked as a carpenter for numerous employers and projects in the Twin Cities area, except in 1953 when he worked at Babbitt, St. Louis County, Minnesota, and in 1954 when he did construction work in Greenland for several months.

On Thanksgiving Day, 1959, Grengs conceived the idea and did the preliminary drawings for his first invention, an amphibious rescue craft. The Grengs Rescue Craft, with improvements and modifications, was awarded a patent in 1965. On August 17, 1968, Grengs and his son Sheldon entered into an agreement with Eng-O-Prod. Industries, Inc. for the manufacture of the craft. His subsequent inventions included a wall-mounted television bracket, a pontoon watercraft, and a water buggy. He joined the Midwest Inventors Association in 1961 and served as its vice-president from 1965 to 1970.

Grengs died in South St. Paul, Dakota County, on August 21, 1997.

From the guide to the Aloysius F. Grengs and family papers., 1889-1988., (Minnesota Historical Society)