Frølich Family Papers

Numerous documents related to the Frølich family history in both Norway and Seattle, Washington

Biographical Note

Fritz Heinrich Frølich was born 16 June 1900. He is the oldest son of Fritz Heinrich Frølich (born 1872) and Dagny Jenson Frølich (born 1875). He is the great-grandson of Fritz Heinrich Frølich (born 1807) who founded Norway’s oldest commercial bank, Christiania Bank of Kreditkasse. Fritz’s brother was George Frølich. George immigrated to America at age fifteen. He graduated from Columbia University in 1894 even on a meager salary. He became a prescription clerk and then a store manager. He married Olivia Perrin in 1895.

He later set out for Africa and became second-in-command of American volunteers during the Boer war in Africa. Upon returning to the United States, he worked 14 years a Detroit pharmaceutical firm and became manager of their New England territory and in 1907 was delegated to introduce the company’s products into the West Indies. In 1910 he was hired by the United Drug Company as organizer of the advertising department and then as manager of the medicine department. He was instrumental in creating a number of new products that greatly increased United Drug Company’s gross profits. He was a member of the Boston Advertising club and was president of it in 1920 and 1921.

He retired in 1941 at age 70. Another brother, Gunnar Frølich, was born in Norway and went to South Africa in the early 1920s. Gunnar was an architect who designed some of Durban’s best-known high-rise buildings and some of its stately homes. He was one of the founders of a film company in Durban and used to take films to Norway to “present South Africa’s case there.” He died at age 81 leaving his wife Tulla, four sons, and a daughter.