springfieldchessclub.com

Thank you all for coming to participate in this tournament to honor the memory of our father. We are grateful to the Springfield Chess Club for making the arrangements.

Frederick Ekstrom was born on July 25, 1919 in Brooklyn, New York, a son of Swedish immigrants. He learned to play chess as a boy, taught by his Swedish uncle, and he remained an avid chess enthusiast for the rest of his life. He participated in several tournaments, including one held in 1941 at Colgate University in upstate New York, where he won the trophy cup for first place in Class B of the New York State Chess Association Congress.

On October 12, 1942, he married his childhood sweetheart, Margaret Davidson Gordon, a Scottish immigrant and Registered Nurse. During World War II, he served in the Army Air Corps, stationed at Scott Field and then in the Pacific.

After the war, he attended City College of New York on the GI Bill and later graduated with a Master's Degree in accounting from New York University. He worked for several organizations in New York City, including Madison Square Garden and Wm. W. Fitzhugh, Inc. Throughout the years, Dad played postal chess regularly and maintained a lifetime subscription to Chess Life magazine.

After retirement in 1985, our parents lived for several years in Howell, New Jersey. Then in 2001, they moved to Carlinville, Illinois to be near their younger daughter Marsha Meredith and her family. Our father continued to play chess on the computer and occasionally with a friend (Joe Clark, who is here today.) To keep up with the game, he also joined the Springfield Chess Club as a corresponding member.

I learned many things from my father, including an interest in languages and a love of baseball, tennis, swimming and pinochle. I never quite caught on to chess but I appreciated the game for its multicultural heritage and its artistic pieces.

Our mother died in December 2009 and our father followed her on June 16, 2013 – a month short of his 94th birthday.

His children are pleased to support this memorial tournament in his honor.
Good luck to all of you. Thank you.