Suzanne Friedberg, longtime Pottstown resident, community volunteer, dies at 93
Suzanne “Sue” Friedberg, widow of longtime Pottstown optometrist and World War II hero Elmer S. Friedberg, died at age 93 on Sept. 25, 2017. Since 2014, she had lived full time in the Bradenton, Fla., home of her daughter, Deborah McAvoy.
Born in 1923 in Philadelphia, the former Suzanne Marie Marella was the daughter of Maria (Pirolli) Marella, who emigrated from Caserta, Italy in the early 1900s, and Giuseppe Antonio Marella, a first-generation ItalianAmerican, who was a produce vendor in South Philadelphia’s Ninth Street Market with his five brothers for many years, and later a grocer in the Overbrook section of the city.
Along with brothers Leonard and Donald who predeceased her, she was raised in South Philadelphia in and around the neighborhood of 12th and Snyder Avenues. She attended Edgar Allan Poe Elementary School and Vare Junior High School. Following her graduation in 1941 from South Philadelphia High School for Girls, she went to work for Bell Telephone Company as an operator in their 17th and Arch Street headquarters.
“It was only a few months before Pearl Harbor. I wanted to be an airline stewardess, but my mother wouldn’t let me,” she recalled in an oral history interview conducted by her daughter, Linda Penney. “My mother asked someone she knew at the telephone company to help me get a job there.”
War Effort and Early TV
A year later as World War II raged in Europe and the Pacific, Sue was recruited by the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard and granted a security clearance to work as a main switchboard operator at the most important period in the yard’s history. “The FBI investigated me, my family, and interviewed the whole neighborhood about me before I started work there,” she said.
“Everyone was always on high alert and we carried our ID cards everywhere,” she recalled. “It was a very exciting, very high energy time, with mobs and mobs of people. You really felt like you were doing something important. I was sorry to leave that job when the war was over.”
In the late 1940s, she joined Philadelphia radio station WFIL-AM (later WFILTV, now WPVI-TV) as a receptionist and telephone operator and appeared in a few early television commercials. A spot for F.W. Woolworth featured her twirling an umbrella while shopping in the store, but the attractive brunette declined subsequent opportunities to pursue a career on camera. “I never had the slightest interest in being on TV or performing, except when I was little and took tap dancing lessons because I wanted to dance like Eleanor Powell. She was my idol,” she said.
Marriage, Family, Friends
In 1949, after working late one evening at the station, Sue and a girlfriend stopped at The Click, a restaurant and theater at 18th and Walnut streets, to see a young singer named Frankie Laine. “Back in those days, we weren’t afraid to go out at night, it was safe, and we used public transportation,” she said. Her future husband, Elmer, sat down next to them and asked where they worked. “I must have given him my phone number and then didn’t think too much about it, but he called.”
Elmer served in World War II as a navigator in the Army Air Force, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross for heroic actions over a German airfield that saved the lives of his entire crew. After the war Elmer joined the optometry practice of Dr. Franklin Meyers at 7 N. Hanover St. Sue joined Elmer in Pottstown after they married in 1951.
When Meyers retired, Dr. Friedberg took over the practice and moved the office to 130 King St. In the early 1990s, he retired from practice and by the time of his death at age 92 in 2009, he had attained the rank of brigadier general in the Air Force Reserve. He was buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery. His life and service to his country, community, and profession were covered extensively in The Mercury.
Sanatoga American Legion Post 244 was renamed in his honor, merging in 2016 with Pottstown Post 47 to become American Legion George A. Amole/BG Elmer S. Friedberg Post 244.
The slower pace of a small town was challenging for city girl Sue. “I had to get used to it. I didn’t like it at first,” she said. “I kept going back home every weekend.” Working in her husband’s office answering phones, making appointments, and keeping the books helped acclimate her.
“My father’s success was due in no small measure to my mother’s loyalty, support, and wisdom,” says Linda Penney.
The couple’s first address was 345 King St. Later they moved to Belmont Apartments at 980 Hale St. and became friends with another young couple who lived there, Ed and Pat O’Neill. Sue and Pat had their first children while living there and the young mothers frequently walked together with the babies in strollers to Bause’s Drug Store (now Professional Pharmacy) on Charlotte Street a few blocks away.
“Pat and I always treated ourselves to Hershey bars,” Sue recalled. “It was like the carrot at the end of the stick. We still talk about how good those Hershey bars were.” Later, the Friedbergs and the O’Neills purchased ranch homes next door to each other on Moyer Road in New Hanover Township, just outside of Pottstown. (Patricia Dilbert O’Neill died in September 2016).
In 1960, the Friedbergs built a split level home on Sycamore Drive in Pottstown’s north end where they raised their three children. Sue remained in that home for 55 years, until her move to southwest Florida three years ago.
Community Service and Travel
Throughout much of her life, Sue was active in community service, early on with the Pottstown Newcomers Club and the Pottstown chapter of the American Red Cross, where she met lifelong friend Mary Ann (Mills) Lawrence, of the Ellis Mills department store family. Shortly after arriving in Pottstown, she became a volunteer in the chapter office. She continued to work the annual blood drives after her children were born and was an American Red Cross volunteer hospital aide — “Gray Lady” — at Pottstown Memorial Medical Center for more than 15 years.
She also served for many years on the board of the Pottstown Symphony Orchestra, contributing her time and creative talents to planning the annual Pops Concert at Sunnybrook Ballroom.
Sue and Elmer enjoyed travel, visiting Italy, Israel, Guatemala, Greece, Portugal, Spain, Mexico, France, the Netherlands, Ireland, the U.K., Bermuda, Jamaica, Hawaii, and touring cities, sites, and landmarks throughout North America. Later, when Elmer was no longer able to travel, Sue continued her travels with a close relative, visiting Alaska, Australia, New Zealand, and Fiji, and touring California, Vancouver, and parts of British Columbia, Canada.
Sue and Elmer celebrated their 50th anniversary in 2001 with family and close friends. They were married for 58 years, until Elmer’s death.
Known to family and friends as a loving and devoted mother and grandmother, Sue doted on her grandchildren and was never happier than when she was caring for them, shopping for them, and supporting their various interests and hobbies as they grew into young adults who loved, admired, and respected their “MomMom.”
Sue was an avid reader who enjoyed history and art and took pleasure in being surrounded by her collection of watercolors, oils, drawings, prints, and objects, many acquired on her travels. She also enjoyed opera, museums, movies, and theater and until recently she was able to complete The New York Times Sunday Crossword Puzzle each week.
Witness to Pottstown’s Changes
“I think Pottstown has been good to me,” Sue said at the age of 89 in 2013, reflecting on what she believed were the biggest changes in the borough in her 60 years as a resident. “The loss of the big industries (Mrs. Smith’s Pies, Firestone, Doehler-Jarvis, etc.) put a lot of people out of work,” she said. “But the opening of Montgomery County Community College brought a lot of people into the community.”
“Our mother was a kind and gracious person who saw only the good in people,” says daughter Linda Penney. “She was loved by many, many people.”
Contributions may be made in Suzanne Friedberg’s memory to The American Red Cross and Salus University Pennsylvania School of Optometry. She will be interred with her late husband at Arlington National Cemetery in a private family service at a date to be determined.