Fred Tabbert was born in 1860 in Marienberg, Germany. He left Germany at sixteen years of age, arriving in New York in 1876 and worked his way west to Chicago. In 1883 he came to Sanborn, North Dakota, Dakota Territory, to visit his brother Henry and filed on a claim. He met the girl who became his wife Mary at a dance where she played the organ and he won the lucky raffle ticket. Fred Tabbert and Mary Menke were married November 2, 1891.
Mary Menke was born in Sheboygan, Wisconsin 1862, the daughter of Henry and Arilla Clark Menke, who arrived in Sanborn by immigrant train in 1883 with her two brothers and a sister to join the father who had filed on a claim in Mansfield Township. The walk from Sanborn to the claim was long, cold and wet from melting snow, darkness came and the boys decided to camp for the night; the girls went on to a light in a shanty where they found food and shelter for the night with a young man and his mother. In the morning the young man, Jess Pickins, took the girls to their father's claim and later, he married Mary's sister. It was a joyful reunion when the boys arrived with the horses and loads. Later in the summer the rest of the family arrived.
The Menkes traced descent from Liedersdorff Castle. Mary's grandfather was personal tailor to Napoleon Bonaparte and Empress Josephine. A prayer book, a present from Empress Josephine, saved his life by stopping a bullet when he joined the German army after deserting Napoleon. She also had colonial connections with M. Thos. Clark and Abraham Clark, with Commodore Perry and Claude Klaus, one of the first North Dakota settlers in Jamestown where a park is named Klaus Park.
Fred and Mary Tabbert lived in Mansfield Township for many years where their first home was a sod shanty. They prospered and built a fine home which was blessed with five children: Annie, Mrs. Fred Rohde, Valley City; Ed -Jamestown; Alice, Mrs. Wm. Schaefer, Florida; Polly, Mrs. Ben Clark, Valley City, and Fred J., Los Angeles, California.
Source: Barnes County History 1976 Page 244