Eugenie Fribourg: Nearly 99 Years in Brooklyn

May is Jewish American Heritage Month and to celebrate I thought we could take a closer look at the Eugenie Fribourg Family Photographs and Ephemera Collection. It is comprised of materials relating to and documenting the family and professional life of Eugenie Merzbach Fribourg, a Jewish-American Brooklynite whose life spanned nearly the entire 20th century. She was born in 1908 and died in 2007, just weeks before her 99th birthday and the vast majority of her life was spent in Brooklyn.

Gustave Fribourg and Hortsense Merzbach, Eugenie's parents were both New Yorkers, but Gustave's parents were from French Alsace. 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 and her siblings, twin Louis and older brother Albert, 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.

Since this collection also include ephemera we have some of Eugenie's items including her Tanakh and prayer book both of which were inscribed. 

But the vast majority of the collection are snapshots of a young Jewish girl growing up in Brooklyn. 

Eugenie graduated Barnard College in 1929 and briefly worked in fashion advertising but it wasn't long to her true passion - medicine. 

Leaving Brooklyn for the first time, Eugenie head down to Virginia to get her medical degree. She 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. 

Returning to her beloved Brooklyn after graduation, 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.

Eugenie married Phillip Tykulsker in 1948 but theirs was a brief love, as he passed in 1961. Included with her things is a silver bracelet with his name on it. 

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 what is described as a sizeable scholarship. The fact that Eugenie is still helping women get into medicine is a testament to her legacy. 

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 just shy of the age of 99 in 2007. According to her obituary Eugenie was remembered for her love of life; her deep commitment to community and medicine; her passion for sailing and swimming; her sense of moral outrage and ethics; her closeness to family and friends and her deep and unwavering loyalty to our Brooklyn.