"A Beautiful Flower in our Town"

THE DOLORES FRITZSCHE STORY

It was early this Sunday morning.  I was just at Veterans Gardens tidying things up – getting things ready for this week’s bocce leagues’ Opening Days.

It was quiet.  Just me and a handful of birds singing their morning song.

I looked over to the side of the court.  There’s a bench there to watch the games. 

And I imagined seeing 91-year-old Dolores, as I did every game day, sitting on that bench with her oxygen tank’s tube snuggled under her nose.

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Enthusiastically cheering on the players. 

She was a fixture at our games.

Dolores Fritzsche passed away over the winter.

Here’s what I know.

Everything beautiful about the Palisades — was right on the face of Dolores.

She never played on a bocce team; she never rolled a single ball in her life.

But Dolores was always, always there.

And next to her, her fantastic, caring, beautiful, full-of-heart daughter, Maria Molloy – right by her side.  Always by her side.  Just for the record book, they don’t make ‘em better than Maria.

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A little bit about Dolores.

Dolores Jones was born in Missouri in the hurricane of the Depression to two great parents.  

Sparked with a love of adventure and traveling, Dolores hopped on three trains at 18 across the country for college days at Immaculate Heart in Los Angeles.

She met her Prince Charming, Bill Fritzsche – and moved to the Palisades in 1956.

First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes seven kids in baby carriages.

She put her college diploma in the drawer and was proudly a stay-at-home mom – who loved cooking fantastic, warm meals every night for the nine in her castle. 

She adored her kids, and they adored her back.

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“She couldn’t wait to hear about our days at school — or to see the shells we’d find at the beach,” said daughter Maria.

“Mom was Maria von Trapp.  She just loved watching us all shine,” said Maria.

In a day when time stood a little still in the Palisades, everybody in town knew Dolores’ red Flyer wagon.  She’d wave to all her Palisadian pals in town, pulling it behind her right into Hughes Market (before Ralphs was there). 

She’d fill it up with the families’ groceries for her seven kids – and pull it back to her lovely home on Ocampo Drive.

Everyone in town knew and loved Dolores.

A daily communicant from her teenage years, she was devoted to her faith.

She was passionately involved in Sister of Social Service and Meals on Wheels.  I can only imagine how amazing she was in her days as a Cub Scout den leader.

She defined what selfless means.  Integrity means.

You could always find Dolores supervising the voting polls in town, and she loved her days teaching kids about their faith down the street at Corpus Christi.

She was the President of the Legion of Mary and the Rotary Anns -- and just beloved by her Corpus Christi family.

Dolores and her hubby Bill couldn’t have been more involved in our town’s clubs and events.

 A young entrepreneur, Bill founded a water filtration company -- which ultimately snowballed into PuroServe.

“My mom was always proudly right on his arm,” said Maria.  “They traveled everywhere together.”

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Bill passed away in 2006, and Dolores missed him deeply, living alone in their family and neighborhood home.

Her daughter Maria (and her husband David) had raised their family in a quaint Connecticut town, not a lot different than the Palisades.  

Seven years ago, with her mom’s health failing, Maria and David packed up their lives and selflessly moved back into her old family home with her mom.

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“Regrets?  We have none.  We live on the greatest block in the world,” said Maria. “The Mortensens, Smiths, Martinis, McRoskeys, Martins, Landrys, Olsens, Serras, Loefs, Borgesons – it doesn’t get better than that!”

“I miss the drives around town with my mom,” said Maria.  “She was my co-pilot, and my mom would love to drive down the streets of the Palisades, finding the blooming pear blossoms on the Alphabet Streets, the tulips and magnolias in Rustic Canyon, or the jacarandas on Albright.”

“My mom grew up listening to World War II songs on her vinyl records, and she had a song for everything!  I mean everything!” laughed Maria. 

“On her last night with all of us, we had a houseful of family making meatballs for dinner.  With a big smile on her face, she was belting out some random Bing Crosby’s lyric, ‘You get no bread with one meatball.’”

She gently passed away in her sleep, knowing she had tilled the soil so gently, so respectfully, for her seven kids and seventeen grandkids.

As days pass by in all of our lives, we look for meaning.  For what mortality means.

I know one thing for sure.

You were a gardener, Dolores.

And what a beautiful garden you created.  Touching so many lives along the way. Your family.  A lifetime of friends.  Your church and your town.

Lucky, lucky us that you got on that train to California — and made the Palisades your home.

Gracing us with the most beautiful flower of all; so precious, so rare, so lovely…

You.

Jimmy Dunne is modern-day Renaissance Man; a hit songwriter of 28 million hit records, writer and producer of hit television series’, award-winning book author, an entrepreneur—and his town’s “Citizen of the Year.” Reach out to him at j@jimmydunne.com.

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