Deceased January 4, 2018

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In Memory

Frank passed away on Jan. 4, 2018, at age 92. That is all the actual data I have since the witty postcard that came with the news only advised the following: New address – Heaven and for the email address – N/A. I regret (as usual) there was no address label on the card which would have enabled me to contact the family and perhaps get a copy of any obituary notice in the local paper.

But Frank’s connection to our class is clear, and he so established this with his response for our 50th-year yearbook from which I will quote for this commentary when he said that he feels like he is a part of the class though he was there for just three semesters.

To be sure he spent nine months at Franklin & Marshall before going into the Air Force and then four years at the architectural school at Yale but insists that all the customary “warm and fuzzy” feelings that are associated with college were imprinted at Amherst.

Apparently it was Professor Lowenstein who made this strong impression on him. Each semester, it seems, there was another revelation. One was that he realized that he did not want to go to MIT to become an aeronautical engineer. Then he learned enough to scare his father with quotes from Lowenstein about “The Future in Perspective.”

Finally, he determined that he did want to become an architect and thus to Yale. While at Yale, he one day visited Professor Baird at his home which had been designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. He says he became a dedicated “problem solver” and has enjoyed that immensely ever since.

Along the way he managed to do some of the usual things—got married, fathered two girls, divorced, married again, became a widower after 20 years and now mows the grass, plays tennis and visits his daughters, their children and his two stepchildren. He concludes with the observation—“everyday the sun rises.”

A very interesting fellow. I wish I had known him. (Bear in mind that all of my remarks date from 1999).

Gerry Reilly ’49