Fidelis Waldvogel

Fidelis Waldvogel is one of the main characters of the novel. Fidelis grows up in Ludwigsruhe, Germany. When he is a young man, he leaves home to serve in what is then referred to as “the great war” (1). In “late November of the year 1918,” he returns home to Ludwigsruhe following the end of the war (1). Determined to keep his promise to his late best friend Johannes, Fidelis marries Eva, the woman to whom Johannes was engaged before the war. A few years after their marriage and the birth of Eva’s baby, Fidelis travels to America to establish a new life for his new family. He ultimately settles in Argus, North Dakota, where he begins working as a butcher, relying upon the techniques and skills his father, a master butcher, taught him years prior.

Eva and her son, Franz, eventually join Fidelis in Argus. The family establishes...