Frank was a member of Welcome Home Military Heroes.

Please join us as we honor the memory of Frank and show support & love to his wife Kathy and their family.

This Flag line will be for the Celebration of Life.

In 1968, Frank brought his family from Granada Hills to Arroyo Grande and taught metal shop at the high school for a brief stint. He obtained a master’s degree in education at Cal Poly and was immediately hired as a full-time lecturer in the university’s industrial technology department, where he taught for five years. He then became a licensed contractor, remodeling and repairing houses and apartments throughout the area. In 1975, he built his dream house on his hill above the Old Branch School overlooking the Arroyo Grande Valley where he and Kathy lived for forty years.

Born in Paradise, Missouri, and raised in Missouri during the Great Depression, Frank changed schools nine times in his early years, with his father moving his family of nine children every January. Frank’s parents struggled mightily, with his father working as a sharecropper for one dollar per day during Frank’s earliest years.
Named for Benjamin Franklin, Frank was very much an inventor, like his namesake. As a child, Frank would create his own toys, foraging for little wheels and other materials from the nearby dumps where farmers would put their trash. He had a gift for visualizing the final product and made toy vehicles, airplanes, and the like, entertaining himself for hours this way. Later in life, whenever he needed a specialized tool to perform some task, he would often just make it. He loved making things with a welder and some metal or a block of wood, and his children and grandchildren often benefited from his talents, as he often made gifts for them.
Drafted into the U.S. Army during the Korean War, Frank served first as an M.P. then learned Morse Code and trained as a radio operator who accompanied officers while hiking up and down hills with a 40-pound pack on his back. His service in Korea was among his most proud life events, and he spoke of it often. Taking advantage of the G.I. Bill, Frank obtained a bachelor’s degree at the University of Missouri in Columbia, near his parents’ farm, and during this period he attended a Methodist campus ministry function where met Kathryn Spauldin, whom he would soon marry. The couple completed their teaching credentials at Mizzou, during which time Frank suffered health problems, leading a physician to recommend relocating to a warm, mild climate.

DATE: 11 January 2020
TIME: Arrive 1:20 p.m.
LOCATION: Grace Bible Church, 100 Rodeo Dr, Arroyo Grande

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