AustLit

Maxwell Gordon Holtfreter was the son of a blacksmith. He worked as a farm labourer before opening his own blacksmith shop in Bruce Rock in 1921. Holtfreter diversified into motor engineering just as motor vehicles were becoming established in Western Australia. He established an agricultural engineering business in Northam and later sold tractors and agricultural machinery. Holtfreter moved into the demolition business in the late 1950s before eventually retiring to Mandurah, a coastal town just south of Perth. From October 1985 to February 1986 he was the subject of an oral history project by Michael Adams and 19 sixty minute cassettes were taped.