Editor’s note, Oct. 24, 2022, at 3:30 p.m.: The date for Frieda Klein’s celebration of life has been updated.
Tahoe City resident Frieda Klein passed away at home at the beautiful age of 86, peacefully surrounded by music, family, and friends with a rainbow in the sky on May 29.
Frieda was a wife, mother, artist, human and civil rights advocate, fashionista, excellent cook, best friend to so many, teacher, home designer, author, and so much more.
Born on March 13, 1936, in Camden, New Jersey, Frieda was introduced to art at a young age. She painted portraits on the beach boardwalk in Wildwood, New Jersey. Art became a love and expression throughout her life.
Frieda and her best friend, Adele, were telephone operators, and they wanted more out of life. They went to nursing school where Frieda became a psychiatric nurse. In addition to becoming a nurse, she taught art classes, had numerous art shows, made and sold hundreds of pieces of art, created pottery and jewelry, had a local TV talk show, opened and operated an art store, wrote a book, and was on faculty teaching art at Sierra Nevada College. With her boundless energy, she often threw dinner parties to which hundreds would attend. She created menus and cooked the majority of food for these events.
Frieda’s home was her interior layout and design. She wasn’t a trained architect, but that didn’t stop her from creating her own version of blueprints for contractors to follow. The lakefront home still stands as a tribute to Frieda and her creativity.
Frieda was a nurse at Philadelphia General Hospital when she met the love of her life, Richard Klein. Impressed with her beauty and deep kindness to patients, he relentlessly pursued her. She gave him a chance, and immediately said, “That’s the man I’m going to marry.” They shared 63 beautiful years together. Frieda always wanted children and they had three sons and one daughter. They lived in Los Angeles for 13 years, moved to Homewood in 1974, and finally settled in Tahoe City in 1978.
Frieda’s warmth, infectious optimism, and loving personality were traits everyone found so alluring, and she had hundreds of lifelong friends. She exuded empathy and had extraordinary people skills. Anybody who crossed paths with Frieda was made to feel extra special, as she genuinely wanted to know everything about them, and she cared for each person she met. Friends and family would go to her knowing she would love and accept them regardless of the subject. She would talk with anyone at any time, for hours.
Frieda will be sorely missed by her family and everyone who knew her. Survivors include her loving husband, Richard; sons, David, Jeffrey, and Robert; daughter Janet; 10 grandchildren, Cami, Max, Thomas, Torrey, Jeromey, Joey, Jessica, Nicole, Elijah, and Kya; numerous cousins, relatives, and hundreds of friends from all corners of the earth.
There will be a celebration of Frieda’s life on July 9, 2023, in Tahoe City.
~ Submitted by the family
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