I’m sure many of you remember our classmate, Warren Fitzgerald, who you may have guessed had some connection with Fitzgeralds’s Ice Cream, famous in our fair city.  In fact, that delicious ice cream was the product of the enterprise of Warren’s father, Roy.

I worked for Roy Fitzgerald at his ice cream counter, across Central from Highland, for two summers.  Those were memorable times.  Recently I got to thinking about Roy and his business, and wondered what had became of it. In a recent trip to Albq, I couldn’t find it.  I thought that surely one of the Albuquerque newspapers would have published an informative obituary that I could find on the Internet, but after a lot of searching I got absolutely nothing.  – Quite a disappointment.  Roy was, in my estimation, a great man, and something needed to be said in his honor, so I decided to take it on myself to do that, even with my admittedly limited knowledge and perspective.

I know nothing of where Roy came from, how he ended up in Albuquerque, how he got into ice cream, or what his life’s vision was.  I do know that sometime around the 1940s, he started out with a small ice cream store on Central Ave, just up the hill a ways from the downtown area and not far from Albuquerque Hi.  There he made the well-known ice cream he sold under his own name, and where he also had a soda fountain.  My big brother worked there, and a great many other teenagers over the years, including many friends.  One of my mother’s guilty pleasures was to take the family to Fitzgerald’s after church on Sundays to get us all an ice cream cone.  What a treat that was!  Kinda made Sunday worth it.

After his business there got established, riding the wave of the rapidly expanding city, Roy opened a second store in the early 50s further out Central near San Mateo Blvd, with space for significantly expanded production.  He called it, “the plant.”

Roy was a serious, quiet man, not given to chit chat.  He didn’t have the time for it.  His seriousness often seemed to be a preoccupation with anxious concern.  We patronize local business with little appreciation for all that goes behind the scenes in mounting such enterprises.  Consider what Roy dealt with:  he had to secure a reliable supply of high-quality milk and other ice-cream ingredients and keep an appropriate supply of it on hand; to acquire, operate, and maintain a great deal of specialized equipment for making his product –large stainless steel vats and pumps and pipes and freezing machines; to build and maintain a large, walk-in freezer where he stored his product; to acquire, operate, and maintain a small fleet of refrigerated trucks to deliver his product around the area; sell his product to retailers and maintain those relationships; to select, hire, and train reliable employees to make and distribute his product, and to service his soda fountain –perhaps around 25 in all, several of whom were frisky teens; to make payroll every two weeks that deducted appropriately and made the required payments to state and federal agencies; to keep “the books” and insure that it all stayed in balance; to comply with numerous legal requirements on businesses, furthermore those businesses that handled food, and successfully pass sanitation inspections; and more.  His operation wasn’t large enough to justify middle management or even supervisors.  He managed it all himself.  And did I mention that hobbled around on a crippled leg? Needless to say, it was a lot for one man to juggle.

Consider also Roy’s family responsibilities:  I don’t have details, but my impression is that our friend Warren lost his mother when he was a child, meaning that Roy had to maintain a household and raise Warren and his older brother as a single parent at the same time he was running his business—one open 14 hours a day, every day.  All this put together equals a stressful life that few men would be up to.  I know I wouldn’t.

Roy’s product was top quality. He used only milk high in butter-fat and other quality ingredients.  There weren’t the many competing varieties of frozen gourmet desserts we have today, but there were several other brands of lesser ice creams available.  Even though his product was reasonably priced, what made selling it challenging was that grocers often used cheaper brands as loss-leaders—products they would advertise at a price below their cost in order to lure in customers, which significantly cut into Roy’s sales.  Nevertheless, he never lowered himself to dodgy marketing schemes.  His was an honest product for an honest price.

His soda fountain was a great hit too.  Most evenings it was packed with frequent customers, in to get that famous tall, thick milkshake for just 25 cents, or a quart of creamy hand-packed ice cream.  And being across the street from Highland, it was a popular after-school hangout too.

One of the few times I ever saw Roy smile was when a customer would express appreciation for his product.  He would just beam.  I took that as showing what mattered to him:  that he was in that business to bring pleasure to others.  It was obvious he wasn’t making a lot of money for it.  I think another of his motivations was to help young men by giving them jobs.  And he gave a lot of us jobs—often our first, breaking us in to the world of work.  He wasn’t a very demanding boss, and cut us a lot of slack.  Nurturing, you might say, in a man’s way.  When we weren’t busy, he’d let us eat his ice cream, and we at a lot of it, all the time. 

I think it was the early 60s when Roy sold his business.  –Finally threw in the towel, I guess.  But it seems the new owner did not do well with it.  Within a few years, the “plant” had been torn down and another business built in its place.  The Fitzgerald’s we knew and loved has disappeared without a trace.

Not long after the sale, Roy was killed in a tragic auto accident.   But Roy has not disappeared.  He still lives in me and hundreds if not thousands of his others – employees, customers, clients, friends… —the whole city.  His was a household name, synonymous with the good things of life.

Robert Bushman, Aug 2016

Robert. I read your post on Roy Fitzgerald. I knew Warren from 7th grade through College and last saw him probably around 1988 or 1989 when he literally dissappeared.  Last I knew from his step mother she had located him in San Francisco. I knew Roy fairly well because of my association with Warren. Roy was killed in an incident where he was towing Warren's car which broke down on Campus at UNM. They were at the Carlisle overpass over I-40 when they had a problem with the tow rope and Roy was between his car and Warrens trying to fix it when a a group rear ended Warren's car crushing Roy between the two vehicles.It is my understanding the fellows that hit them had been drinking but apparently in those lax days little was done and I don't think a lawsuit resulted in Warren and his step-mother winning anything. Warren's older brother, an engineer at Sandia Labs tried to keep the Ice Cream operation running until they could sell it. I tried to encourage Warren to take it over but he was never interested. After finding buyers a couple of times and then getting the business back, they finally liquidated the inventory and sold the Fitzgerald's Ice Cream name to Creamland Dairies.

Thanks for the update, Ralph. 

Hope Warren's okay.

Thought you would like the additonal information on your tribute to Roy. One thing I didn't mention about Roy was that when Warren and I were kids we would go to a movie together occasionally and Roy would usually pick us up and take us home. Around Christmas, if he drove us home from a movie, when we got to my house he would stop the car and open the Trunk. He always had two gallons of Fitzgeralds Ice Cream in the Trunk for me around the Holidays. I don't know about Warren. As I mentioned he did a dissappearing thing I think around 1989 or 90. His Step-mother hired a private detective and located him in San Francisco  but he didn't want to be bothered with anyone. I have a theory on what was going on with him but without evidence I wouldn't want to put anything forth. He always came to Albuquerque for Christmas and stayed with his Step-mother and I usually took him to a Lobo Basketball game and did some Christmas shopping with him but haven't seen or heard from him since he dropped out.

This is all fascinating. I loved going to Fitzgeralds.

Thanks for telling about Roy's giving you all that ice cream for Christmas.  That kind of generosity --his taking pleasure in the pleasure of others-- is much of what honors his life.

PS  Any leads on Warren yet?

Robert. I just posted a reply on the message center to you. I apologize that I failed to get back to you when you posted this site in January. I was having some house issues (a couple of leaks had occurred with my Well equipment and I was deeply invested in getting a bedroom in the lower level that had gotten water in it fixed. I simply spaced out the notification that you had posted anything and never got around to answering. My apology's again. That was rude.

As explained in my message center reply I have never attempted to contact Warren though there is a possiblity he is in Milwaukee, WI.  That is where I located a Warren Fitzgeral about the right age who had lived in San Francisco which is the last location he lived from what I know.