Liberty County Times (MT), 15 Mar 1945:
Funeral services were held on Wednesday of this week for John E. (Dutch Ed) Trommer, old-time settler of this section of the country. Trommer passed away Friday evening after only a very short illness, although his health has been failing for a number of years.
He was born in Colberg, Germany in April of 1859 and came to the United States as a young man, shortly after the Northern Pacific started their railway westward. He had been in Montana for 65 years. Among the first jobs he held after leaving the employ of the Northern Pacific was freight-boss on a freighting string from Fort Benton to Fort Browning.
Later he married a woman that had come to Montana to teach school. She was employed at the schools in Browning. After their marriage they came to the Lothair district and he settled there to make his home and operate a ranch. At the time the land was opened to homesteading he was operating a successful horse ranch north of Lothair. By squatter rights he obtained a homestead and has remained on it the rest of his life.
The most of his family has been gone from this country for considerable time. It is known that he had five children, 2 boys and 3 girls. One of the boys has been in Panama for a number of years. The whereabouts of the rest is not certain.
Interment was made in the local cemetery following services in the local Methodist Church.
PS. The “Dutch” part of Ed’s nickname came from the English miss-translation of the German word for ‘German’, Deutsch. So, the Pennsylvania Dutch are really of German descent.