Courtship and Marriage to Genie
Falling in Love
Ned as a US Navy Cadet in 1942.
oward the end of World War II, young men on the University of Texas (UT) campus in Austin were scarce. In February ’44, the Chi Omega sorority held a social for the few Phi Kappa Psi fraternity members around. When the tall, handsome Navy officer on leave from training pilots at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi arrived, all female eyes were on the smart-looking fellow with blazing red hair and green eyes.
He walked in with his white uniform on. It was quite exciting. – Genie Fritz
Ned quickly spotted Eugenia “Genie” Dunn, an attractive, shapely coed with intelligent eyes and a bright laugh. With Ned’s love of travel and international politics, and Genie’s degree in Latin American studies, he found her fascinating. Would she go out to dinner with him, he asked.
Genie had plans to go out with girlfriends afterward and said she’d inquire about begging off. “I asked them: ‘Do you mind if I break our date and go out with this man?’ They said, ‘Are you crazy? Go, go!'”
The evening went well, Genie recalled: “Ned and I went out to dinner and talked and talked and talked. We found our many interests in common. We both loved the out-of-doors. We liked sports, classical music, and good literature. We agreed on politics and religion. I could also tell he was very intelligent, and that was very high on my list.”
“He was also idealistic. Of course, I didn’t know it at the time, but honesty was another of his attributes that was important to me. The next morning as I was walking to class with a friend, I told her, ‘You know, I’ve met my man!’ Thus began my life with Ned Fritz.”
Courtship
Barton Springs Pool. Fair Use, Austin Public Library.
oon Ned made the six-hour round trip to see Genie every chance he could. She was a graduating senior and her time at UT was almost over. Her diplomat parents, stationed in Bogota, Colombia, expected her to return there after graduation. The couple filled their time together with adventures.
That winter, we went to Barton Springs. I jumped right into that frigid water, and Ned was impressed I would do that. I figured the woman Ned would marry had to be adventurous. – Genie Fritz
As spring rolled around, they could barely stand to be apart. Sitting on the steps of the Texas History Museum (now called the Bullock Texas State History Museum) with its expansive view of the UT campus, Ned implored her not to go to Bogota. Both knew that she’d probably never return to the states once in South America.
Genie recalled: “He said, ‘Well, why don’t you marry me?'” But being just 19, she was unsure about such a commitment and worried about what her parents would think. “Several days later, I decided that I would marry him. When I wrote my parents, I imagine it was probably quite a shock. They were not at all pleased because they had never met Ned.”
The couple visited Dallas to meet Ned’s parents, who were charmed by Genie. “Ned’s father was quite bright and had a very fine sense of humor. His mother was an excellent housekeeper and a wonderful cook. In later years, she was a good grandmother, babysitting for us and having us over for meals, which we appreciated.”
Then Ned was transferred as a flight instructor to the immense Naval Air Station San Diego. After reuniting for just a few months upon Genie graduation, the couple was now separated again.
Navy Bride
Ned and Genie on their wedding day.
fter graduation, Genie joined Ned in San Diego. His sister Eleanor, now married to Jack Horner, lived two hours away in the Los Angeles suburb of Whittier. The couple desired a church wedding, but had not yet joined a congregation in California. With insider knowledge of the area, she found a small Episcopal church in Pasadena whose minister was willing to marry the couple.
With only Eleanor, her husband, and a friend of Genie’s from Buenos Aires in attendance, the couple exchanged vows on June 26, 1944. They honeymooned at a cabin in the San Gabriel Mountains’ Angeles National Forest and set up housekeeping in a San Diego apartment.
I was still learning to cook. Even failed at pancakes. It just didn’t work, but he did not complain. He ate it all. – Genie Fritz
Ned , Genie, and their Packard in 1944.
Then yet another transfer for Ned, in ’45 to Naval Air Station Whidbey Island near Seattle. His assignment was learning to fly the PBY reconnaissance bomber. A newly pregnant Genie and Ned journeyed to Whidbey in their ’36 Packard, which boasted a maximum speed of 35 miles an hour unless going downhill.
Ned was transferred to face active duty in Operation Downfall, the impending invasion of Japan. Knowing what lay ahead, the couple savored their slow coastal drive together. Ned knew Japan’s defense of Iwo Jima and Okinawa had been fierce—95 percent of their soldiers fought to the death, including kamikaze pilots. U.S. military experts estimated one to two million American soldiers would die or be wounded in a mainland invasion. Anticipated Japanese losses were projected to be far worse—five to ten million, including civilians [1].
Oak Harbor Seaplane Base, Whidbey Island. National Archives photo.
Wartime housing near Seattle was scarce, as was fresh food. A single mother living on a farm offered free room and board to the couple in exchange for help with chores and babysitting her two-year-old. Fresh milk and produce from the farm, a rarity in wartime, was augmented by fish Ned caught on breaks from the Navy. The bucolic times contrasted with the grim future they faced.
Instead of such a bloody invasion, on August 6th and 9th American forces dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Nearly 250,000 citizens suffered horrific deaths. Most US soldiers were unaware a nuclear assault was being considered.
On September 2, U.S. General Douglas MacArthur accepted Japan’s formal surrender [2]. The war between Allied and Axis powers was over. By month’s end, after nearly four years in the Navy, Ned was honorably discharged at the rank of lieutenant.
Ned remained in the U.S. Naval Reserve for 20 years, earning him a comfortable pension. But his view of the armed forces was less than favorable. In a Navy questionnaire sent to Ned in the ‘90s, when asked how World War II affected his life, he replied: “It took about four years out of my legal career.” He mentioned frustration with “overreaching officers.” One question was if any friends had been wounded or killed in the war. His terse answer was heartbreaking: “Many.” [3]
Back to Texas
n the first of their many cross-country adventures, Ned and Genie headed back to Dallas in their pokey Packard. They sputtered over the Cascade Mountains and on to the Rockies, subsisting mainly on Velveeta cheese, peaches, and other produce they could procure.
Glacier National Park by Ken Thomas. Public domain via Wiki Commons.
Arriving at their first destination, Glacier National Park on the Montana-Canada border, they found it closed for the winter season. Ned impressed the park ranger with his bird knowledge, and the couple was allowed to stay in a cabin. By nightfall, Genie, now very pregnant, was wracked by abdominal pain. The couple feared a possible late-stage miscarriage in remote mountains far from medical help was imminent.
The ranger’s wife, a mother herself, attended to the suffering Genie. She asked questions to distract Genie, including what her last meal was. A cucumber was the reply. The ranger’s wife rocked back in her chair, deeply relieved: “Cucumbers are notorious for gas pain. This will pass.” The following day the couple was on their way again.
Their lengthy and leisurely southward trek to Dallas took them through the Rocky Mountains’ most iconic sights, such as Yellowstone and Grand Tetons National Parks. Ned avidly absorbed naturalist and indigenous information at every stop while getting hints on the best places to fly fish. Ned was anxious to return to lawyering but relished every moment of fleeting leisure with Genie.
Continuing south through Colorado, Genie recalled, “I was seven months pregnant at Mesa Verde [National Monument], climbing ladders several stories high. Can’t believe I did that.” Travels through northern New Mexico and the Texas Panhandle were less adventurous. Soon the couple was in Dallas, ensconced in the home of Ned’s parents. In November, their daughter Linda was born.
A Home in Dallas
he couple struggled to find affordable housing in Dallas suitable for a growing family, an issue that Genie would later tackle as a founder of Greater Dallas Housing Opportunity. Finally, a place became available at Mustang Village in northwestern Oak Cliff [4].
Quonset hut village near Oxnard, California, 1946. Public domain via Wiki Commons.
Constructed for workers at the nearby North American Aviation assembly plant, which manufactured P-51 Mustang aircraft [5], and military stationed at Naval Air Station Dallas, Mustang Village found a second life housing returning veterans and their families.
Possessing a fair amount of Oak Cliff’s famed large trees, which charmed the couple, Mustang Village was little more than a jumble of half-cylindrical, metal-skinned Quonset huts with tiny, scarce windows. All of it perched upon hard blackland clay and linked by questionable plumbing lines and electrical wires.
The Fritz Family, mid 1950s.
But it was home for Ned and Genie for five years, one they felt fortunate to have found. Daughter Gayle arrived in ’47, Eileen followed in the next year, and ultimately a fourth daughter Judy in ’51, making a family sextet.
Lifelong friendships and alliances were forged at Mustang, including Louise and Grier Raggio, both lawyers. Louise would rise to be the first female prosecutor in Dallas County. Her activism helped secure for Texas women the right to obtain credit in their own names. [6] Grier shared with Ned a deep concern for the environment. [7]
Ned and Genie found a faith community at Tyler Street United Methodist Church, vital support for Genie as Ned began to spend long hours at his legal career. But their Quonset abode was crammed. With Ned’s increasing success, owning a home was becoming a real possibility.
He remembered a place where SMU students would picnic, a tiny lane that dead ended in a wildflower meadow along Bachman Creek. The picturesque locale—once a favored Native American camping spot—was overlooked by a limestone escarpment that soared stories tall. They were both charmed by the quiet, ruralesque enclave.
Ned negotiated a sweet price for three acres from a doctor named Minnie Maffit. Soon construction would begin on their Cochran Chapel Road home, where they would live for 57 years.
Next Chapter: Ned Versus the Loan Sharks
All material on this page is copyrighted by Ned Fritz Legacy and protected by law. Search services will notify the webmaster if any verbiage or photos appear on other websites. For permission to quote from this material, please contact us.
ENDNOTES
Material in this chapter drawn from My Life with Ned Fritz, by Genie Fritz; Ned’s autobiographical writings provided by the family; and interviews with Genie in March, April, and July 2022.
[1] Operation Downfall, Wikipedia
[2] Surrender of Japan, National Archives https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/surrender-of-japan
[3] Questionnaire for Former Cadets & Aviation Instructors at CCNAS; undated but filled in after 1992; Edward C. Fritz Archives, SMU.
[4] Architecture at Risk: Six Endangered Oak Cliff Places, by Rachel Stone; August 2, 2018.
[5] North American P-51 Mustang, Wikipedia
[6] Louise Raggio, Wikipedia
[7] We Consume Too Much, Greer Raggio blog
