Among those foreign-born Americans who have been of conspicuous service to the communities in the New World in which they have settled, a leading business man is Albert Zunlinden, proprietor of a drug store at No. 50, Spring Street, Manville, Rhode Island.
Albert Zunlinden was born in France, October 30, 1885, son of Jacques and Madeline (Hirtz) Zunlinden, the father being a native of Alsace-Lorraine, the mother of Germany. The parents came to this country in 1902 with their son, who was educated in France. He was seventeen when he landed in this country on September 28, 1902. He studied in the Rhode Island College of Pharmacy, from which he holds the ‘degrees of Graduate in Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Chemist. His business is a prosperous one, and his drug store is one whose prescriptions can be relied on. He established his enterprise in 1912 and has so ably administered it during the intervening seventeen years that it has come to be regarded as one of the solid and established houses of the town. He has two clerks and a large stock of wares. He is also president of the Manville Credit Union.
Business has not absorbed all Mr. Zunlinden’s energies. The year he took out his citizenship papers, he entered politics. In 1913 he was elected to office, and from 1913 to 1921 he represented his district in the State Legislature. During the World War he performed yeoman service as a member of committees dedicated to furthering the war, and he was chairman of most of these committees. After the war, he served as chairman of a committee organized to collect funds and build a monument to World War veterans from his section, and the resulting monument was the first of its kind to be erected in the United States. Whatever he undertakes, Mr. Zunlinden can be relied on to push through with tact and force.
Albert Zunlinden married Harriet Vose, born in Manville, daughter of Everett W. Vose, and a graduate of Wellesley and Columbia colleges. Before her marriage, she taught history in Putnam, Connecticut. Mr. and Mrs. Zunlinden have a son, Albert Zunlinden, Jr.
Source: Carroll, Charles. Rhode Island: Three Centuries of Democracy, vol 3 of 4. New York: Lewis historical Pub. Co., 1932.