Fred Mauck

Fredrick R. Mauck was born April 24, 1913, in Yetter, Iowa. He was active as a clarinetist in the Boone (Iowa) High School band as well as a member of the school’s orchestra and chamber orchestra. By 1932, he was also a student director for the school orchestra. Throughout the 1930s, he “…traveled the Midwest with the Freddie Mauck Orchestra,” according to his obituary in the 'Quad City Times'. The band is reported to have traveled a territory ranging from Iowa to the Canadian Border, and south through Kansas. The Freddie Mauck Orchestra is reported to have disbanded on December 31, 1936. From 1939 until the time of his retirement, Fred is frequently listed as a film projectionist at venues like The Paradise Theatre in Moline, Illinois (1939 into the 1940s), The Roxy Theatre in Moline (around 1945 to at least 1955) and The Spruce Hills Twin Theater in Bettendorf, Iowa (around 1977-1979). By 1949, Fred and his first wife, Mayphine, resided at a Moline address shared with a transcription recording business known as Inter-City Recording Service. It’s presumed that this business, which produced program content for local radio stations and rehearsal recordings for nearby dance studios, was the genesis of Fredlo Records. Fred’s marriage to Lois Hansen in 1951 inspired the name of the Fredlo label, resulting from a contraction of the names Fred and Lois. The studio relocated from Moline across the river to Davenport, Iowa, around 1956, with the Maucks living on the second floor above the recording facility. After shutting down the studio in 1976, Fred spent two more years as a projectionist before retiring with his wife to the community of Grand Marais, Minnesota, where he passed away March 11, 1995.