Fribourg family

Eugenie Merzbach Fribourg was the daughter of Gustave Fribourg and Hortsense Merzbach. Gustave’s parents, Eugene and Leonie Fribourg were raised in French Alsace, while Gustave was raised in New York. Eugenie’s mother Hortense was of German and French descent. She was born in New York to Louis Merzbach and Clementine Loeb. Louis Merzbach had emigrated from Hanover, Germany, where his parents were jewelers, and continued the family business in New York. Clementine Loeb came from a family line of restaurant owners in France. Like the Merzbachs, the Loebs carried on their family business in America, where Clementine’s father Joseph owned a restaurant on the Bowery.

Eugenie Fribourg was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1908. She had a twin brother Louis and an older brother Albert (born c. 1904). Eugenie and her siblings grew up in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn. Eugenie and Louis had their Confirmations at Congregation Beth Elohim (also known as Garfield Temple) in Park Slope in 1923.

The Fribourgs were Alsatian Jews who maintained a strong connection with their ancestral heritage in the region, returning to France to visit on at least one occasion in the 1920s.

Eugenie’s brother Albert married Ruth “Jim” Brindze. “Jim” Brindze gained some renown as a consumer activist and author who penned columns for The Nation magazine, and books on the subjects of radio advertising and civil liberties. She later wrote children’s books about science and exploration.

Eugenie Fribourg married Phillip Tykulsker in 1948. He died in 1961.

After graduating from Barnard College in 1929, Eugenie Fribourg worked briefly in fashion advertising. However, she spent the bulk of her professional life practicing medicine. Eugenie graduated from the Medical College of Virginia (now Virginia Commonwealth University) in 1939, one of eight women out of the 61 graduates in her class. In 1945 she began working at Brooklyn Hospital in the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn. Eugenie spent approximately 45 years as a M.D. specializing in Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism. After she retired in 1994, Eugenie remained active in various medical associations. She established the Eugenie M. Fribourg Scholarship Fund for female medical students in financial need at Virginia Commonwealth University.

In 1996, Eugenie received a Walter E. Reed Medal recognizing her lifelong service to the Brooklyn Hospital patients and community.

Eugenie Fribourg lived nearly her entire life in Brooklyn, New York. She died at age 99 in 2007.

From the guide to the Eugenie Fribourg family photographs and ephemera, Bulk, 1890-1950, 1857-2007, (Brooklyn Historical Society)