1953: William and Dolores Fritzsche

Golden Couples of the Palisades

“Quite honestly, I married the girl of my dreams,” Bill Fritzsche says. “As a boy I used to dream of someone like Dolores. I got lucky.” Fritzsche grew up in Los Angeles, attended Loyola High School and, after a year at the University of Washington, came back to enroll at Loyola Marymount University. He shared a house at the beach with nine other college students, many of whom were World War II veterans. “We’re best friends to this day,” Fritzsche says. Dolores Jones grew up in St. Louis and moved to Los Angeles to attend Immaculate Heart College, where she received a degree in history and elementary education. She also formed a group of close friends, “The Basic Five,” that still gets together. While Dolores was in college, the Catholic colleges in Los Angeles would organize programs such as gathering 90,000 people in the Coliseum to pray for peace and say a rosary against Communism. In 1951, she and Fritzsche were introduced at one of these church events by one of Bill’s roommates. After dating for two years they were married in St. Louis on October 31, 1953’halfway through Bill’s military duty. They honeymooned at the Greenbriar Hotel in Silver Springs, West Virginia, where Bill’s father designed the town’s railroad station. After Bill’s discharge from the Army, he and Dolores moved to Eagle Rock and then on to Santa Monica (with their toddler, William Jr., who was followed by James, Caroline, Elizabeth, Maria, Thomas and Vincent). They wanted to buy a house, but “nice houses in Santa Monica were too expensive,” Dolores says, so they looked instead in Pacific Palisades and found a house on Via de la Paz, where they lived for 16 years. “Living here has been amazing,” Bill says, “You can walk to school, to church and to the stores.” In 1960, the Fritzsches bought a Rayne Water Conditioner franchise, and they eventually owned seven franchises in Southern California. While Bill was expanding their business, Dolores was at home running the household. “Laundry was a racket,” Dolores says. “The children were not allowed to put clothes in a hamper willy-nilly.” “Thank God for wash-and-wear,” Bill adds. “We ate simply; I didn’t cook for leftovers,” Dolores says. “We had lots of bologna and peanut butter sandwiches. When you have seven kids, you get organized.” And you put the kids to work around the house. “Boys need to do things that they know are worthwhile, like raking the leaves,” says Bill, who recalls that when the family moved to a home on Ocampo, the people who bought their house wanted to hire their gardener. “We have two,” Bill told them. The people started to object that they couldn’t afford two. “We have one son do the front yard,” Bill continued, “and one does the back.” Their children all attended Corpus Christi School, over a 23-year span. “I think I was at the school longer than any mom,” says Dolores, who recalls that every summer her husband would plan cross-country trips with all the kids in a station wagon. Without DVDs and Gameboys, how did they cope? Simple, according to Bill. “No eating in the car, and I’d make one child the navigator who got to sit in the front seat with the map.” “After lunch, I’d drive,” Dolores says, “and Bill would call on our daughter Caroline for the ‘Miss Caroline story hour.'” “She’d tell the most amazing stories,” Bill recalls, “and I would do the commercials.” He turns radio announcer and gives his spiel: “Stay at the Dirty Sheets Hotel…” “We’d always stop early and find a motel with a swimming pool,” Dolores adds. Making a marriage work, according to the Fritzsches, comes from having a deep faith and a love for each other. Dolores jokes, “We don’t have more than one fight a day.” “If we fight, we separate and then one or the other will say ‘Sorry’ and the other will be sorry that they didn’t say it first,” Bill says. All of the Fritzsche children are married, and there are 14 grandchildren’with another due in June. “We are blessed,” Bill and Dolores both say.