Like his fellow countrymen Ming Luhulima and Rudi Wairata, he found sizable popularity in the Netherlands and Europe playing Hawaiian music.
[1] He was married to Joyce Aubrey and together they had a daughter Wanda, who was born in Bandung, Indonesia in 1946 and became a recording artist, like her musical parents.
[5] It is believed that de Fretes stowed away on a ship called the Johan van Oldenbarnevelt and arrived in the Netherlands around 1958.
[9] He is buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park cemetery, Los Angeles County, California.
[20] In September 2010, his daughter Wanda took a trip from California to the third Chanos International Steel Guitar Festival aka CISGF which was held in Chanos-Curson, France, to receive a posthumous European Steel Guitar Hall of Fame award for her father.