William Frederick Fritz M.D.

WILLIAM FREDERICK FRITZ, M.D.

Jaffrey NH - Baltimore lost one of its most beloved physicians on June 11, when Dr. William Frederick Fritz died peacefully at home.

He was 98. Dr. William Fritz, a specialist in internal medicine and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Johns Hopkins Medical School, was born in Merrill, Wisconsin, and raised in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. He was the son of Frederick D. Fritz, a distributor of industrial leather belting, and Esther Brunkow Fritz, a homemaker. After attending schools in Oshkosh, he received an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy by Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R., WI), but he turned it down to pursue a pre-medical career in the Navy V-12 program. He was sent to Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania, during World War II. He joined the Muhlenberg track team and ran the one-mile race in 4:56 at the Penn Relays in Philadelphia. Upon finishing his pre-medical education in the V-12 program, he was stationed at the Philadelphia Naval Hospital as a corpsman and was discharged from the Navy as an ensign in 1945. In 1945, he entered the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and graduated in 1949. In his second year of medical school, his roommate's aunt asked four classmates to watch a fox hunt and have dinner afterward. At the end of the hunt, he met Susan Baker as she dismounted from her horse. From the moment they met, he was smitten and that was the beginning of a lifelong love story filled with devotion to one another and their family. At the time they met, Susan was finishing her second year at Vassar College. In the ensuing years, Dr. Fritz made several trips to Vassar and the couple became engaged in early 1950. As an Intern at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, he could not be married, but when he became an Assistant Resident, that changed. He and the former Susan E. Baker of My Lady's Manor married in September 1950. Following his internship and during his assistant residency at Massachusetts General Hospital, he was called into the United States Public Health Service during the Korean War. There he served in the National Heart Institute as a Senior Assistant Surgeon. He was in the first group of physicians occupying the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda and worked closely with Dr. Luther Terry who, later, as Surgeon General, issued the warning that cigarettes were detrimental to health. After two years of research on morbid obesity and heart disease, as well as research on irreversible shock at NIH, Dr. Fritz became a research fellow in the Department of Pharmacology at the Johns Hopkins Medical School under Dr. E. K. Marshal. During this time, he authored several papers. He then returned to Johns Hopkins Hospital as a Resident in Medicine. He entered the private practice of medicine in 1955 and maintained an office on West University Parkway until he retired in 1991. He was beloved and acclaimed by colleagues and patients for his exceptional skill as a physician and his compassion and empathy. Dr. Fritz was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society.

Dr. Fritz and his wife resided in Rockville, MD, while he was at the National Heart Institute. They then bought a house in Ruxton where they lived until 1960 when they moved to "Bryn Arden", their home in the Green Spring Valley, where they raised their children and lived for many years. They moved back to Ruxton in 1983.

In the 1960s, Dr. Fritz inherited a Rolls Royce Silver Cloud from a Delaware patient. He was a true automobile aficionado, so he was delighted with the car. However, it proved to be a mixed blessing as noted by Bradford Jacobs, the Baltimore Evening Sun editor, who wrote an editorial, "One Doctor's Dilemma." Jacobs noted that Dr. Fritz's wife and children were embarrassed to be seen riding in it, and Dr. Fritz acknowledged that the sight of his arriving on a house call in a Rolls Royce might cause the patient to suffer a serious relapse. He sold the car after a short time.

On the Centennial of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, he was one of the recipients of the Distinguished Physician Award from the Medical School. He was a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, Diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine and member of numerous other medical organizations. He served on the active staffs of the Johns Hopkins Hospital, Greater Baltimore Medical Center and the Union Memorial Hospitals. He had also been on the staffs of the Church Hospital and Home and the Good Samaritan Hospital. He was a past member of the Board of Trustees of the Greater Baltimore Medical Center and he had been a member of the foundation boards of both the Greater Baltimore Medical Center and the Union Memorial Hospital.

He was a member and former governor of Eldridge Club, a member of the Johns Hopkins Club, the Maryland Club, the Thorndike Pond Club (NH), the Dublin Lake Club (NH), and a former member of the Coral Beach and Tennis Club in Bermuda. He was a former board member of the Sheridan Libraries of the Johns Hopkins Institutions and he had been a subscriber to the Bachelors' Cotillon.

After retirement, he took up and became proficient in oil painting. He played tennis until he had bilateral knee replacements and thereupon, he and his wife (an accomplished tennis player) became enthusiastic golfers. They played regularly at the Elkridge Club but also enjoyed courses in Ireland, Scotland, Portugal, the United States and Caribbean. Dr. and Mrs. Fritz enjoyed traveling abroad and for several years they rented a London flat in December to attend the theater and Christmas shop. He loved crossword puzzles and did three puzzles every day until macular degeneration forced him to give it up. Later he resumed doing them on a weekly basis with his granddaughter via Zoom. She was his eyes and with his brilliant mind and memory he was able to visualize the puzzle and together they solved it. He particularly enjoyed the New York Times Sunday Puzzle. He wrote and published a mystery novel, Thy Will Be Done, when he was 84 years old. Dr. Fritz was a communicant at the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer where he taught Sunday School in the 1960's.

Family was the center of his life. They spent summers together first on Squam Lake in NH and later at their summer home "Still Pond" in Jaffrey Center, NH, and he and his wife spent part of the winter at the Jupiter Island Club in Hobe Sound, FL. His many friends from all generations were a significant part of their lives everywhere they went. He was loved and admired for his authenticity, warmth, gentle strength, humility, positive spirit and attitude, thoughtfulness and wonderful sense of humor.

A memorial service will be held on July 19th at 3:00pm at the Church of the Redeemer, 5603 N. Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21210.

His beloved wife of 59 years, Susan Baker Fritz, died in 2009. He is survived by his three children, Ellen Fritz Clattenburg (Richard N. Clattenburg, Jr) of Weathersfield, VT, Ann Fritz Hackett (Lance B. Hackett) of McLean, VA, and William F. B. Fritz (Susan M. Fritz) of Annapolis, MD, his 8 grandchildren and his 12 great-grandchildren.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Thorndike Pond Conservation Association, PO Box 595, Jaffrey, NH 03452 or the Church of Redeemer, 5603 N Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21210.