Ernst Frey, 89, who made the screen-like faceplate for Sunbeam’s first electric shaver and later started a company that made improved parts for everything from telephones to washing machines, died of heart failure Thursday, Sept. 28, in Sun Health Hospice in Sun City, Ariz. A longtime resident of Park Ridge, he had lived in Arizona for 10 years. Most wouldn’t recognize the items Mr. Frey and his company produced, though his son said the optimistic and creative Mr. Frey always hoped to make the one widget, part or fandangle that would become indispensable for some commonplace product. “He was always looking to develop and create things,” his son Ernest said. “There’s always that possibility, that opportunity that you might find something which is going to be significant and propel your company to a larger role in the industry.” Perhaps Mr. Frey’s greatest accomplishment was refining the Bobbin Gobbler wire coiler, which produced the finely wound coils essential to mouth- and earpieces in Western Electric telephones. Another moderate success was the coffee brewing equipment he made for a postwar vending machine company. But his son said Frey Tool & Engineering almost became famous for producing the Jewel Queen dishwasher in the 1950s, had not the truck carrying all the company’s Jewel Queens run off the road, crashed and destroyed every prototype model. Despite never becoming a household name, Mr. Frey took great enjoyment from his job while, as an immigrant himself, he for years found jobs for and sponsored immigrant workers in the United States, his son said. Born in southern Germany, the elder Mr. Frey learned to make tools as an apprentice in Eislingen. He came to America in 1928, worked for a Chicago vending machine company and joined Sunbeam in the mid-1930s. He founded his company in 1947 and retired in 1983. His company is still run by his son. Mr. Frey is also survived by a daughter, Loretta Wallenberg; nine grandchildren; and nine great-grandchildren. Services will be at 10 a.m. Wednesday in Nelson Funeral Home, 820 Talcott Rd., Park Ridge.
