Remembering Flag Mama Laura Froehlich One Year Later

One year later, Moreno Valley looks back on the life and legacy of one of the community’s most dedicated citizens. On August 1, 2012, Laura Froehlich, known more intimately as Flag Mama because of her patriotic clothes, passed away to the shock of her community. She was 63. Froehlich was well known in her community for her involvement, but most notably for her enduring support of military service members. For 23 years, Froehlich acted as the coordinator of Moreno Valley’s iconic annual Fourth of July Parade and worked at the March Air Reserve Base, seeing off military troops and welcoming them back when they returned from war. Froehlich’s husband Larry shared that from a young age, she exhibited a strong passion for helping others, recalling one story she shared with him shortly after they first met: as a young child, she held a community lemonade stand to help raise money for her neighbor, who at the time was battling cancer. That drive to give back never stopped in her younger years, but rather extended throughout her entire life. Froehlich served in various capacities with the Moreno Valley Morning Optimist Club and as the chairman for the Moreno Valley Chamber of Commerce Military Affairs Committee for years, where she oversaw volunteers who provided troops with food, a relaxing environment and facilitated meetings with clergy. It was her mission to make them feel loved and appreciated, shared Larry. “After the troops came back from Vietnam, there was a lot of indifference and disrespect toward military personnel, and she wanted to make sure that would never happen again. She put fulltime effort into that cause.” Froehlich at the age of 21 joined and served two years in the Air Force, where she met her husband Larry, who was also serving in the Air Force. The couple married and when she became pregnant with their daughter, Laurice Souron, Froehlich left the military. The family moved throughout the country, eventually settling in Moreno Valley in the mid-1980s, when Larry began working at March Air Force Base in the military reserves. During her lifetime, Froehlich founded March Air Force Base’s Hangar 385, which she furnished with big-screen televisions and provided showers for troops returning from and deploying to war. In October 2003, Froehlich, who became “a goddess in the Marine Corps,” said Larry, welcomed then-President George W. Bush to the City as he landed at March Air Force Base. Froehlich was well known for sporting patriotic wear, including the colors red, white and blue. She could also be seen driving around on her red, white and blue golf cart. In addition to her long list of community services, Froehlich also founded the “Rally Round the Flag” event in 2002, an event which has become an annual tradition, with proceeds split between the March Field Air Museum and helping to feed deploying troops at March Air Field Base. As Moreno Valley gathered recently for the annual Fourth of July parade—the first without Froehlich—emotions were high. When Larry was asked if his wife’s trademark patriotic golf cart could be driven in the parade, he agreed, but only if a military member was the one behind the wheel. To Larry’s surprise, the military member driving his wife’s cart was none other than his own daughter, Laurice, a SMSgt with the 163d Reconnaissance Wing at March Air Force Base, who was joined by her own daughters, Laural, 15, and Taylor, 12. “Since I was 16 years old, I have driven in that parade, and this year, I made the decision not to drive,” said Laurice. “I just didn’t think I could do it. But three days prior to the parade, there was something tapping at the back of my mind. I kept thinking, ‘What would Laura do?’ and I knew my mom would have wanted me to do this, so I surprised my dad when I showed up to drive the cart.” The family recalled the last vacation the family took together shortly before Froehlich’s passing. On their way back home to Moreno Valley from Disneyworld in Florida, the family stopped at Randolph Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas and visited the exact spot where Larry and Laura met more than 40 years before. In front of his family, Larry got down on one knee and proposed to Laura again, giving her a costume ring one of his granddaughters wore at the time. Froehlich left a legacy of compassion and action, according to her longtime friend George Price, president of the Moreno Valley Morning Optimist Club. “Whatever she got involved in, she was not a passive member. That was Laura’s mantra: if she was going to help, she was going to go all the way.” Froehlich is the recipient of the 1998 Boys Scouts of America Five Nations District Citizen of the Year award; the 1999 Moreno Valley Chamber of Commerce Citizen of the Year; the 2002 City of Moreno Valley Frank Chalbana Memorial Community Service Award; the 2007 Riverside YWCA Woman of Achievement award; the 2008 March Air Force Base Order of the Diamonds award; the 2009 Spirit of Hope award given by the Department of the Navy; and the 2010 Patriots Citizen award. In 2006, Froehlich was nominated for the Air Force Reserve Command’s Zachary and Elizabeth Fisher Distinguished Civilian Humanitarian award, and had a park named in her honor in 2006 at the Villas of Moreno Valley. “August 1 is the first anniversary of her death, and it’s going to be tough for all of us,” said Price. “But we will remember her love for her country and military personnel.”