Don was a friend of nature, a patriot and proud Navy veteran, a hard worker, a frugal saver, and a man who loved and was devoted to his family.
He was a non-traditional “tree hugger”. He wouldn’t chain himself to a giant sequoia in protest of an oncoming chain saw. Rather, he revered the natural world and saw nature, particularly trees, as a sustainable entity. When he died December 7, 2017, he had planted—by his own hand—thousands of trees on his family’s properties in southern Indiana and in Marshall Township. Two oak trees in the Marshall Township lawn grew from acorns dropped from a tree at his daughter’s Ohio home. He proudly displayed an Indiana Certified Tree Forest sign on the Indiana farm that recognized his efforts to tend, replenish and responsibly harvest his trees.
He was also a responsible and ethical hunter, taking the time to learn and practice with his bows out of respect and compassion for the animals he hunted. He planted a vegetable garden every year. The natural world has lost one of her greatest stewards.
Don loved the USA and had a unique perspective on the greatness of it from living in other countries for many years. America was at war in Vietnam when he graduated from Purdue University in the early 1960s. Figuring he qualified as One A for the draft, he joined the Navy so he would not have a “life in a foxhole.” He graduated from Navy Officer Candidate School in Newport, R.I., was commissioned an officer and proudly served in MCB5, a Navy Seabees construction battalion, embracing the Seabee motto “We Build, We Fight.” He served one tour in Vietnam and served in Guam and California. When thanked for his service, he always responded, “It was an honor and a privilege.”
Hard work marked his whole life, beginning early. He had a paper route when he was a 7-year-old elementary school student in Rockville, Ind. He delivered the daily Indianapolis Star on his bicycle before school and collected from customers on Saturday after deliveries finished for that day. His father helped him deliver the Sunday papers, which were as thick as a phone book in those days, in their car. Don remembered that in the winter his feet got so cold from the long bike ride outside that he had to soak them in a tub of warm water. He graduated from Worthington-Jefferson High School in Worthington, Ind., where his father was the school principal—not a great atmosphere for a high schooler, he always said. He worked the summers of his high school years for Clarence Calvert, a Worthington farmer. The best part of working on the farm, he said, was that the Culverts ate their big meal at noon, and his family ate theirs in the evening. Two big meals a day was a big deal for a skinny, growing young man.
After high school graduation, he earned a degree in civil engineering from the Purdue University Lyles School of Civil Engineering. Worthington-Jefferson was tiny, and Don lacked a background in higher math classes. He often shared that he struggled to keep his head above water, but his strong work ethic kept him soldiering on, including teaching himself trigonometry his freshman year while carrying a full engineering course load. He loved Purdue even though the sports teams sometimes “broke my heart,” a sentiment borrowed from a fellow Marshall Purdue grad. Never mind. Boiler Up!
His family has long believed that frugality somehow stuck to his DNA. He worked on construction of the Nome to Teller highway in Alaska one summer during college. He used some of his per diem to rent a room in the back of a bar to live in and saved the rest. He drove cars that he purchased, in cash, until some necessity required purchasing a new one (the legendary Volkswagen Rabbit was sold with an odometer that broke several years prior with 200,000 miles on it). The vehicles, though old, were in impeccable shape, having been cared for and serviced on schedule, often personally. He was a saver and thoughtful collector from childhood. The garage at the Marshall Township home is full of saved things: old towels (excellent for mopping down a rained-on, bedraggled, soon-to-be adopted pet); plastic gallon ice cream buckets (perfect size for collecting produce from the garden); random nails, nuts and bolts and screws, bits of wire (does the advantage of coffee cans full of hardware really need explaining?). He used a brown paper lunch bag until it was tattered and disreputable before he would convert it to a coaster for an oil can and get a new one for his lunch. He was “green” way before it was trendy.
Wanderlust took over after he left the military. He took a job in construction on the Hamersley Railroad in Australia, built to haul iron ore. He remembered the flies. It proved dangerous to laugh with an open mouth, he said. It could be full of flies before you could shut it. He also remembered meals of spaghetti, no sauce, on toast. He thought fondly of Australia, though, and always hoped to return.
Leaving Australia, he landed in Mayfield, Ky., working as an engineer for the western portion of the Julian M. Carroll Purchase Parkway. He wandered into a coin laundry that was still under construction to do his wash and helped the owner install washers and dryers. The owner had a daughter who was a fifth-year senior at the University of Kentucky. The owner was very, very quiet about this because the daughter had spent five years in college and hadn’t snagged a husband. When she came home, the father introduced them and on Jan. 7, 1968, Don married Frances Anna Wright at the First United Methodist Church in Mayfield. They always said that they had an “arranged” marriage.
A few months later, they set out to see the world.
Don took a job in Dacca, Bangladesh, (then East Pakistan) building grain silos to store imported grain that often spoiled before distribution. It was a difficult place to live, and it was a trial by fire for newlyweds for the more than two years they lived there. They took advantage of travel opportunities. They rode on a local bus through the Khyber Pass from West Pakistan to Afghanistan. They bargained for an oriental carpet in Iran. They marveled at the temples and the friendliness of the people in Nepal and Thailand. They rode through the streets of Penang on a local bus and found unique and breathtaking beauty in the Taj Mahal. They took empty suitcases to Hong Kong and came back with a full load of stereo equipment.
Leaving Dacca, they spent three months in a Volkswagen camper touring Europe. They left from Amsterdam and headed east. They made it to Greece after a grueling trek down the Dalmatian coast through Yugoslavia. They discovered that odd markings on the Yugoslav maps were gas pumps. Drivers low on gas should stop at a station even if it meant spending an unsafe night in the parking lot because the next “pump” was too far away. They took a ferry from Greece to Italy and traveled through the rest of Europe visiting most of the usual suspects. They ferried from Oslo to Newcastle on a rough sea, and toured England and Scotland, where they chanced to see a military tattoo, a highlight of all their travels. They wended their way back to Amsterdam and flew home.
Georgetown, Guyana was the next stop where Don again worked on a project constructing grain silos. The only English speaking country in South America coupled with a thriving middle class made Georgetown a very comfortable place to live. They took a side trip to Peru and rode the switchback train from Cusco to Machu Picchu. The Machu Picchu area is now grown up with luxury hotels and thousands of tourists. When the Franklins visited, tourists were few and accommodations were rough. They flew to Kaieteur Falls in Guyana and vacationed on the Caribbean island of Grenada. Their first daughter was born in Guyana.
Not finished yet. Africa became the last stop. Don worked in Zaire building a
hydroelectric power line across the country. The goal was to provide electricity to people who had none. Their traveling shoes took them on safari in Kenya.
They came back to the States and lived briefly in Indiana, where their second daughter was born in Linton, the same town where her father had been born. Don took a position with Kellogg’s where he worked as a civil engineer for more than 20 years. They lived in Lancaster, Pa., and Omaha, Neb., --two of the best places on earth to live--before settling in Battle Creek and then moving to a small farm in Marshall Township. They physically built most of their house with the help of Frances’s matchmaking father and have lived there for more than 30 years.
Don worked on projects for Kellogg’s in Battle Creek as well as in in Lancaster, Pa., Omaha, Neb., Memphis, Tenn., and Guangzhou, China. Frances spent about six months with him in China, and they climbed the Great Wall, toured Shanghai, plied the Li River in Guilin, and visited the site of Terracotta soldiers in Xian. They returned to their haunts in Hong Kong, making sure to take the tram to Victoria Peak. They were able, also, to visit Vietnam, a nostalgic trip for Don.
It was a grand, adventurous life for both of them
Don was inordinately proud of his daughters and of their many accomplishments and of the decent, patriotic, caring, productive citizens they have become. He was also inordinately proud of spouses they chose and of how the two families are raising decent, patriotic and caring, productive children.
Don was born July 8, 1939, to A.M. (Doc) and Sarah Louise (Dannenfelser) Franklin in Linton, Ind. They preceded him in death.
Survivors include Frances; his daughters and their families: Sarah Heather (Aaron) Benson and Madeline Benson of Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Molly Wright (Michael) Lipham and Alec Lipham and Joshua Lipham of Ann Arbor, Mich.; and his sister Emily Sue (Tony) Gatto of Dyer, Ind., and their children; and cats Spookie and Olivia Underfoot.
Special friends to thank during Don’s end-of-life journey include Doug Klett; Kevin Mauzy; Jeff and Sharon Robinson and their family; James Mode; the guys at Scooters barber shop; Marshall Animal Care Center, especially Dr. Jen; Lin Johnson; the staffs at Oaklawn Hospice and Peachy Home Health Care; and the exceptional physicians at the University of Michigan.
Memorial contributions may be made to the Scholarship Fund at Lyles School of Civil Engineering—Purdue University or to the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society.
Kempf Funeral Home
The family invites friends to a visitation from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 17, at Kempf Family Funeral &Cremation Services, 723 U.S. 27 North in Marshall, followed by a brief service beginning at 3 p.m. Assistance with memorials is available at the Kempf Funeral Home.
He was a non-traditional “tree hugger”. He wouldn’t chain himself to a giant sequoia in protest of an oncoming chain saw. Rather, he revered the natural world and saw nature, particularly trees, as a sustainable entity. When he died December 7, 2017, he had planted—by his own hand—thousands of trees on his family’s properties in southern Indiana and in Marshall Township. Two oak trees in the Marshall Township lawn grew from acorns dropped from a tree at his daughter’s Ohio home. He proudly displayed an Indiana Certified Tree Forest sign on the Indiana farm that recognized his efforts to tend, replenish and responsibly harvest his trees.
He was also a responsible and ethical hunter, taking the time to learn and practice with his bows out of respect and compassion for the animals he hunted. He planted a vegetable garden every year. The natural world has lost one of her greatest stewards.
Don loved the USA and had a unique perspective on the greatness of it from living in other countries for many years. America was at war in Vietnam when he graduated from Purdue University in the early 1960s. Figuring he qualified as One A for the draft, he joined the Navy so he would not have a “life in a foxhole.” He graduated from Navy Officer Candidate School in Newport, R.I., was commissioned an officer and proudly served in MCB5, a Navy Seabees construction battalion, embracing the Seabee motto “We Build, We Fight.” He served one tour in Vietnam and served in Guam and California. When thanked for his service, he always responded, “It was an honor and a privilege.”
Hard work marked his whole life, beginning early. He had a paper route when he was a 7-year-old elementary school student in Rockville, Ind. He delivered the daily Indianapolis Star on his bicycle before school and collected from customers on Saturday after deliveries finished for that day. His father helped him deliver the Sunday papers, which were as thick as a phone book in those days, in their car. Don remembered that in the winter his feet got so cold from the long bike ride outside that he had to soak them in a tub of warm water. He graduated from Worthington-Jefferson High School in Worthington, Ind., where his father was the school principal—not a great atmosphere for a high schooler, he always said. He worked the summers of his high school years for Clarence Calvert, a Worthington farmer. The best part of working on the farm, he said, was that the Culverts ate their big meal at noon, and his family ate theirs in the evening. Two big meals a day was a big deal for a skinny, growing young man.
After high school graduation, he earned a degree in civil engineering from the Purdue University Lyles School of Civil Engineering. Worthington-Jefferson was tiny, and Don lacked a background in higher math classes. He often shared that he struggled to keep his head above water, but his strong work ethic kept him soldiering on, including teaching himself trigonometry his freshman year while carrying a full engineering course load. He loved Purdue even though the sports teams sometimes “broke my heart,” a sentiment borrowed from a fellow Marshall Purdue grad. Never mind. Boiler Up!
His family has long believed that frugality somehow stuck to his DNA. He worked on construction of the Nome to Teller highway in Alaska one summer during college. He used some of his per diem to rent a room in the back of a bar to live in and saved the rest. He drove cars that he purchased, in cash, until some necessity required purchasing a new one (the legendary Volkswagen Rabbit was sold with an odometer that broke several years prior with 200,000 miles on it). The vehicles, though old, were in impeccable shape, having been cared for and serviced on schedule, often personally. He was a saver and thoughtful collector from childhood. The garage at the Marshall Township home is full of saved things: old towels (excellent for mopping down a rained-on, bedraggled, soon-to-be adopted pet); plastic gallon ice cream buckets (perfect size for collecting produce from the garden); random nails, nuts and bolts and screws, bits of wire (does the advantage of coffee cans full of hardware really need explaining?). He used a brown paper lunch bag until it was tattered and disreputable before he would convert it to a coaster for an oil can and get a new one for his lunch. He was “green” way before it was trendy.
Wanderlust took over after he left the military. He took a job in construction on the Hamersley Railroad in Australia, built to haul iron ore. He remembered the flies. It proved dangerous to laugh with an open mouth, he said. It could be full of flies before you could shut it. He also remembered meals of spaghetti, no sauce, on toast. He thought fondly of Australia, though, and always hoped to return.
Leaving Australia, he landed in Mayfield, Ky., working as an engineer for the western portion of the Julian M. Carroll Purchase Parkway. He wandered into a coin laundry that was still under construction to do his wash and helped the owner install washers and dryers. The owner had a daughter who was a fifth-year senior at the University of Kentucky. The owner was very, very quiet about this because the daughter had spent five years in college and hadn’t snagged a husband. When she came home, the father introduced them and on Jan. 7, 1968, Don married Frances Anna Wright at the First United Methodist Church in Mayfield. They always said that they had an “arranged” marriage.
A few months later, they set out to see the world.
Don took a job in Dacca, Bangladesh, (then East Pakistan) building grain silos to store imported grain that often spoiled before distribution. It was a difficult place to live, and it was a trial by fire for newlyweds for the more than two years they lived there. They took advantage of travel opportunities. They rode on a local bus through the Khyber Pass from West Pakistan to Afghanistan. They bargained for an oriental carpet in Iran. They marveled at the temples and the friendliness of the people in Nepal and Thailand. They rode through the streets of Penang on a local bus and found unique and breathtaking beauty in the Taj Mahal. They took empty suitcases to Hong Kong and came back with a full load of stereo equipment.
Leaving Dacca, they spent three months in a Volkswagen camper touring Europe. They left from Amsterdam and headed east. They made it to Greece after a grueling trek down the Dalmatian coast through Yugoslavia. They discovered that odd markings on the Yugoslav maps were gas pumps. Drivers low on gas should stop at a station even if it meant spending an unsafe night in the parking lot because the next “pump” was too far away. They took a ferry from Greece to Italy and traveled through the rest of Europe visiting most of the usual suspects. They ferried from Oslo to Newcastle on a rough sea, and toured England and Scotland, where they chanced to see a military tattoo, a highlight of all their travels. They wended their way back to Amsterdam and flew home.
Georgetown, Guyana was the next stop where Don again worked on a project constructing grain silos. The only English speaking country in South America coupled with a thriving middle class made Georgetown a very comfortable place to live. They took a side trip to Peru and rode the switchback train from Cusco to Machu Picchu. The Machu Picchu area is now grown up with luxury hotels and thousands of tourists. When the Franklins visited, tourists were few and accommodations were rough. They flew to Kaieteur Falls in Guyana and vacationed on the Caribbean island of Grenada. Their first daughter was born in Guyana.
Not finished yet. Africa became the last stop. Don worked in Zaire building a
hydroelectric power line across the country. The goal was to provide electricity to people who had none. Their traveling shoes took them on safari in Kenya.
They came back to the States and lived briefly in Indiana, where their second daughter was born in Linton, the same town where her father had been born. Don took a position with Kellogg’s where he worked as a civil engineer for more than 20 years. They lived in Lancaster, Pa., and Omaha, Neb., --two of the best places on earth to live--before settling in Battle Creek and then moving to a small farm in Marshall Township. They physically built most of their house with the help of Frances’s matchmaking father and have lived there for more than 30 years.
Don worked on projects for Kellogg’s in Battle Creek as well as in in Lancaster, Pa., Omaha, Neb., Memphis, Tenn., and Guangzhou, China. Frances spent about six months with him in China, and they climbed the Great Wall, toured Shanghai, plied the Li River in Guilin, and visited the site of Terracotta soldiers in Xian. They returned to their haunts in Hong Kong, making sure to take the tram to Victoria Peak. They were able, also, to visit Vietnam, a nostalgic trip for Don.
It was a grand, adventurous life for both of them
Don was inordinately proud of his daughters and of their many accomplishments and of the decent, patriotic, caring, productive citizens they have become. He was also inordinately proud of spouses they chose and of how the two families are raising decent, patriotic and caring, productive children.
Don was born July 8, 1939, to A.M. (Doc) and Sarah Louise (Dannenfelser) Franklin in Linton, Ind. They preceded him in death.
Survivors include Frances; his daughters and their families: Sarah Heather (Aaron) Benson and Madeline Benson of Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Molly Wright (Michael) Lipham and Alec Lipham and Joshua Lipham of Ann Arbor, Mich.; and his sister Emily Sue (Tony) Gatto of Dyer, Ind., and their children; and cats Spookie and Olivia Underfoot.
Special friends to thank during Don’s end-of-life journey include Doug Klett; Kevin Mauzy; Jeff and Sharon Robinson and their family; James Mode; the guys at Scooters barber shop; Marshall Animal Care Center, especially Dr. Jen; Lin Johnson; the staffs at Oaklawn Hospice and Peachy Home Health Care; and the exceptional physicians at the University of Michigan.
Memorial contributions may be made to the Scholarship Fund at Lyles School of Civil Engineering—Purdue University or to the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society.
Kempf Funeral Home
The family invites friends to a visitation from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 17, at Kempf Family Funeral &Cremation Services, 723 U.S. 27 North in Marshall, followed by a brief service beginning at 3 p.m. Assistance with memorials is available at the Kempf Funeral Home.
Don was a friend of nature, a patriot and proud Navy veteran, a hard worker, a frugal saver, and a man who loved and was devoted to his family.
He was a non-traditional “tree hugger”. He wouldn’t chain himself to a giant sequoia in protest of an oncoming chain saw. Rather, he revered the natural world and saw nature, particularly trees, as a sustainable entity. When he died December 7, 2017, he had planted—by his own hand—thousands of trees on his family’s properties in southern Indiana and in Marshall Township. Two oak trees in the Marshall Township lawn grew from acorns dropped from a tree at his daughter’s Ohio home. He proudly displayed an Indiana Certified Tree Forest sign on the Indiana farm that recognized his efforts to tend, replenish and responsibly harvest his trees.
He was also a responsible and ethical hunter, taking the time to learn and practice with his bows out of respect and compassion for the animals he hunted. He planted a vegetable garden every year. The natural world has lost one of her greatest stewards.
Don loved the USA and had a unique perspective on the greatness of it from living in other countries for many years. America was at war in Vietnam when he graduated from Purdue University in the early 1960s. Figuring he qualified as One A for the draft, he joined the Navy so he would not have a “life in a foxhole.” He graduated from Navy Officer Candidate School in Newport, R.I., was commissioned an officer and proudly served in MCB5, a Navy Seabees construction battalion, embracing the Seabee motto “We Build, We Fight.” He served one tour in Vietnam and served in Guam and California. When thanked for his service, he always responded, “It was an honor and a privilege.”
Hard work marked his whole life, beginning early. He had a paper route when he was a 7-year-old elementary school student in Rockville, Ind. He delivered the daily Indianapolis Star on his bicycle before school and collected from customers on Saturday after deliveries finished for that day. His father helped him deliver the Sunday papers, which were as thick as a phone book in those days, in their car. Don remembered that in the winter his feet got so cold from the long bike ride outside that he had to soak them in a tub of warm water. He graduated from Worthington-Jefferson High School in Worthington, Ind., where his father was the school principal—not a great atmosphere for a high schooler, he always said. He worked the summers of his high school years for Clarence Calvert, a Worthington farmer. The best part of working on the farm, he said, was that the Culverts ate their big meal at noon, and his family ate theirs in the evening. Two big meals a day was a big deal for a skinny, growing young man.
After high school graduation, he earned a degree in civil engineering from the Purdue University Lyles School of Civil Engineering. Worthington-Jefferson was tiny, and Don lacked a background in higher math classes. He often shared that he struggled to keep his head above water, but his strong work ethic kept him soldiering on, including teaching himself trigonometry his freshman year while carrying a full engineering course load. He loved Purdue even though the sports teams sometimes “broke my heart,” a sentiment borrowed from a fellow Marshall Purdue grad. Never mind. Boiler Up!
His family has long believed that frugality somehow stuck to his DNA. He worked on construction of the Nome to Teller highway in Alaska one summer during college. He used some of his per diem to rent a room in the back of a bar to live in and saved the rest. He drove cars that he purchased, in cash, until some necessity required purchasing a new one (the legendary Volkswagen Rabbit was sold with an odometer that broke several years prior with 200,000 miles on it). The vehicles, though old, were in impeccable shape, having been cared for and serviced on schedule, often personally. He was a saver and thoughtful collector from childhood. The garage at the Marshall Township home is full of saved things: old towels (excellent for mopping down a rained-on, bedraggled, soon-to-be adopted pet); plastic gallon ice cream buckets (perfect size for collecting produce from the garden); random nails, nuts and bolts and screws, bits of wire (does the advantage of coffee cans full of hardware really need explaining?). He used a brown paper lunch bag until it was tattered and disreputable before he would convert it to a coaster for an oil can and get a new one for his lunch. He was “green” way before it was trendy.
Wanderlust took over after he left the military. He took a job in construction on the Hamersley Railroad in Australia, built to haul iron ore. He remembered the flies. It proved dangerous to laugh with an open mouth, he said. It could be full of flies before you could shut it. He also remembered meals of spaghetti, no sauce, on toast. He thought fondly of Australia, though, and always hoped to return.
Leaving Australia, he landed in Mayfield, Ky., working as an engineer for the western portion of the Julian M. Carroll Purchase Parkway. He wandered into a coin laundry that was still under construction to do his wash and helped the owner install washers and dryers. The owner had a daughter who was a fifth-year senior at the University of Kentucky. The owner was very, very quiet about this because the daughter had spent five years in college and hadn’t snagged a husband. When she came home, the father introduced them and on Jan. 7, 1968, Don married Frances Anna Wright at the First United Methodist Church in Mayfield. They always said that they had an “arranged” marriage.
A few months later, they set out to see the world.
Don took a job in Dacca, Bangladesh, (then East Pakistan) building grain silos to store imported grain that often spoiled before distribution. It was a difficult place to live, and it was a trial by fire for newlyweds for the more than two years they lived there. They took advantage of travel opportunities. They rode on a local bus through the Khyber Pass from West Pakistan to Afghanistan. They bargained for an oriental carpet in Iran. They marveled at the temples and the friendliness of the people in Nepal and Thailand. They rode through the streets of Penang on a local bus and found unique and breathtaking beauty in the Taj Mahal. They took empty suitcases to Hong Kong and came back with a full load of stereo equipment.
Leaving Dacca, they spent three months in a Volkswagen camper touring Europe. They left from Amsterdam and headed east. They made it to Greece after a grueling trek down the Dalmatian coast through Yugoslavia. They discovered that odd markings on the Yugoslav maps were gas pumps. Drivers low on gas should stop at a station even if it meant spending an unsafe night in the parking lot because the next “pump” was too far away. They took a ferry from Greece to Italy and traveled through the rest of Europe visiting most of the usual suspects. They ferried from Oslo to Newcastle on a rough sea, and toured England and Scotland, where they chanced to see a military tattoo, a highlight of all their travels. They wended their way back to Amsterdam and flew home.
Georgetown, Guyana was the next stop where Don again worked on a project constructing grain silos. The only English speaking country in South America coupled with a thriving middle class made Georgetown a very comfortable place to live. They took a side trip to Peru and rode the switchback train from Cusco to Machu Picchu. The Machu Picchu area is now grown up with luxury hotels and thousands of tourists. When the Franklins visited, tourists were few and accommodations were rough. They flew to Kaieteur Falls in Guyana and vacationed on the Caribbean island of Grenada. Their first daughter was born in Guyana.
Not finished yet. Africa became the last stop. Don worked in Zaire building a
hydroelectric power line across the country. The goal was to provide electricity to people who had none. Their traveling shoes took them on safari in Kenya.
They came back to the States and lived briefly in Indiana, where their second daughter was born in Linton, the same town where her father had been born. Don took a position with Kellogg’s where he worked as a civil engineer for more than 20 years. They lived in Lancaster, Pa., and Omaha, Neb., --two of the best places on earth to live--before settling in Battle Creek and then moving to a small farm in Marshall Township. They physically built most of their house with the help of Frances’s matchmaking father and have lived there for more than 30 years.
Don worked on projects for Kellogg’s in Battle Creek as well as in in Lancaster, Pa., Omaha, Neb., Memphis, Tenn., and Guangzhou, China. Frances spent about six months with him in China, and they climbed the Great Wall, toured Shanghai, plied the Li River in Guilin, and visited the site of Terracotta soldiers in Xian. They returned to their haunts in Hong Kong, making sure to take the tram to Victoria Peak. They were able, also, to visit Vietnam, a nostalgic trip for Don.
It was a grand, adventurous life for both of them
Don was inordinately proud of his daughters and of their many accomplishments and of the decent, patriotic, caring, productive citizens they have become. He was also inordinately proud of spouses they chose and of how the two families are raising decent, patriotic and caring, productive children.
Don was born July 8, 1939, to A.M. (Doc) and Sarah Louise (Dannenfelser) Franklin in Linton, Ind. They preceded him in death.
Survivors include Frances; his daughters and their families: Sarah Heather (Aaron) Benson and Madeline Benson of Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Molly Wright (Michael) Lipham and Alec Lipham and Joshua Lipham of Ann Arbor, Mich.; and his sister Emily Sue (Tony) Gatto of Dyer, Ind., and their children; and cats Spookie and Olivia Underfoot.
Special friends to thank during Don’s end-of-life journey include Doug Klett; Kevin Mauzy; Jeff and Sharon Robinson and their family; James Mode; the guys at Scooters barber shop; Marshall Animal Care Center, especially Dr. Jen; Lin Johnson; the staffs at Oaklawn Hospice and Peachy Home Health Care; and the exceptional physicians at the University of Michigan.
Memorial contributions may be made to the Scholarship Fund at Lyles School of Civil Engineering—Purdue University or to the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society.
Kempf Funeral Home
The family invites friends to a visitation from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 17, at Kempf Family Funeral &Cremation Services, 723 U.S. 27 North in Marshall, followed by a brief service beginning at 3 p.m. Assistance with memorials is available at the Kempf Funeral Home.
He was a non-traditional “tree hugger”. He wouldn’t chain himself to a giant sequoia in protest of an oncoming chain saw. Rather, he revered the natural world and saw nature, particularly trees, as a sustainable entity. When he died December 7, 2017, he had planted—by his own hand—thousands of trees on his family’s properties in southern Indiana and in Marshall Township. Two oak trees in the Marshall Township lawn grew from acorns dropped from a tree at his daughter’s Ohio home. He proudly displayed an Indiana Certified Tree Forest sign on the Indiana farm that recognized his efforts to tend, replenish and responsibly harvest his trees.
He was also a responsible and ethical hunter, taking the time to learn and practice with his bows out of respect and compassion for the animals he hunted. He planted a vegetable garden every year. The natural world has lost one of her greatest stewards.
Don loved the USA and had a unique perspective on the greatness of it from living in other countries for many years. America was at war in Vietnam when he graduated from Purdue University in the early 1960s. Figuring he qualified as One A for the draft, he joined the Navy so he would not have a “life in a foxhole.” He graduated from Navy Officer Candidate School in Newport, R.I., was commissioned an officer and proudly served in MCB5, a Navy Seabees construction battalion, embracing the Seabee motto “We Build, We Fight.” He served one tour in Vietnam and served in Guam and California. When thanked for his service, he always responded, “It was an honor and a privilege.”
Hard work marked his whole life, beginning early. He had a paper route when he was a 7-year-old elementary school student in Rockville, Ind. He delivered the daily Indianapolis Star on his bicycle before school and collected from customers on Saturday after deliveries finished for that day. His father helped him deliver the Sunday papers, which were as thick as a phone book in those days, in their car. Don remembered that in the winter his feet got so cold from the long bike ride outside that he had to soak them in a tub of warm water. He graduated from Worthington-Jefferson High School in Worthington, Ind., where his father was the school principal—not a great atmosphere for a high schooler, he always said. He worked the summers of his high school years for Clarence Calvert, a Worthington farmer. The best part of working on the farm, he said, was that the Culverts ate their big meal at noon, and his family ate theirs in the evening. Two big meals a day was a big deal for a skinny, growing young man.
After high school graduation, he earned a degree in civil engineering from the Purdue University Lyles School of Civil Engineering. Worthington-Jefferson was tiny, and Don lacked a background in higher math classes. He often shared that he struggled to keep his head above water, but his strong work ethic kept him soldiering on, including teaching himself trigonometry his freshman year while carrying a full engineering course load. He loved Purdue even though the sports teams sometimes “broke my heart,” a sentiment borrowed from a fellow Marshall Purdue grad. Never mind. Boiler Up!
His family has long believed that frugality somehow stuck to his DNA. He worked on construction of the Nome to Teller highway in Alaska one summer during college. He used some of his per diem to rent a room in the back of a bar to live in and saved the rest. He drove cars that he purchased, in cash, until some necessity required purchasing a new one (the legendary Volkswagen Rabbit was sold with an odometer that broke several years prior with 200,000 miles on it). The vehicles, though old, were in impeccable shape, having been cared for and serviced on schedule, often personally. He was a saver and thoughtful collector from childhood. The garage at the Marshall Township home is full of saved things: old towels (excellent for mopping down a rained-on, bedraggled, soon-to-be adopted pet); plastic gallon ice cream buckets (perfect size for collecting produce from the garden); random nails, nuts and bolts and screws, bits of wire (does the advantage of coffee cans full of hardware really need explaining?). He used a brown paper lunch bag until it was tattered and disreputable before he would convert it to a coaster for an oil can and get a new one for his lunch. He was “green” way before it was trendy.
Wanderlust took over after he left the military. He took a job in construction on the Hamersley Railroad in Australia, built to haul iron ore. He remembered the flies. It proved dangerous to laugh with an open mouth, he said. It could be full of flies before you could shut it. He also remembered meals of spaghetti, no sauce, on toast. He thought fondly of Australia, though, and always hoped to return.
Leaving Australia, he landed in Mayfield, Ky., working as an engineer for the western portion of the Julian M. Carroll Purchase Parkway. He wandered into a coin laundry that was still under construction to do his wash and helped the owner install washers and dryers. The owner had a daughter who was a fifth-year senior at the University of Kentucky. The owner was very, very quiet about this because the daughter had spent five years in college and hadn’t snagged a husband. When she came home, the father introduced them and on Jan. 7, 1968, Don married Frances Anna Wright at the First United Methodist Church in Mayfield. They always said that they had an “arranged” marriage.
A few months later, they set out to see the world.
Don took a job in Dacca, Bangladesh, (then East Pakistan) building grain silos to store imported grain that often spoiled before distribution. It was a difficult place to live, and it was a trial by fire for newlyweds for the more than two years they lived there. They took advantage of travel opportunities. They rode on a local bus through the Khyber Pass from West Pakistan to Afghanistan. They bargained for an oriental carpet in Iran. They marveled at the temples and the friendliness of the people in Nepal and Thailand. They rode through the streets of Penang on a local bus and found unique and breathtaking beauty in the Taj Mahal. They took empty suitcases to Hong Kong and came back with a full load of stereo equipment.
Leaving Dacca, they spent three months in a Volkswagen camper touring Europe. They left from Amsterdam and headed east. They made it to Greece after a grueling trek down the Dalmatian coast through Yugoslavia. They discovered that odd markings on the Yugoslav maps were gas pumps. Drivers low on gas should stop at a station even if it meant spending an unsafe night in the parking lot because the next “pump” was too far away. They took a ferry from Greece to Italy and traveled through the rest of Europe visiting most of the usual suspects. They ferried from Oslo to Newcastle on a rough sea, and toured England and Scotland, where they chanced to see a military tattoo, a highlight of all their travels. They wended their way back to Amsterdam and flew home.
Georgetown, Guyana was the next stop where Don again worked on a project constructing grain silos. The only English speaking country in South America coupled with a thriving middle class made Georgetown a very comfortable place to live. They took a side trip to Peru and rode the switchback train from Cusco to Machu Picchu. The Machu Picchu area is now grown up with luxury hotels and thousands of tourists. When the Franklins visited, tourists were few and accommodations were rough. They flew to Kaieteur Falls in Guyana and vacationed on the Caribbean island of Grenada. Their first daughter was born in Guyana.
Not finished yet. Africa became the last stop. Don worked in Zaire building a
hydroelectric power line across the country. The goal was to provide electricity to people who had none. Their traveling shoes took them on safari in Kenya.
They came back to the States and lived briefly in Indiana, where their second daughter was born in Linton, the same town where her father had been born. Don took a position with Kellogg’s where he worked as a civil engineer for more than 20 years. They lived in Lancaster, Pa., and Omaha, Neb., --two of the best places on earth to live--before settling in Battle Creek and then moving to a small farm in Marshall Township. They physically built most of their house with the help of Frances’s matchmaking father and have lived there for more than 30 years.
Don worked on projects for Kellogg’s in Battle Creek as well as in in Lancaster, Pa., Omaha, Neb., Memphis, Tenn., and Guangzhou, China. Frances spent about six months with him in China, and they climbed the Great Wall, toured Shanghai, plied the Li River in Guilin, and visited the site of Terracotta soldiers in Xian. They returned to their haunts in Hong Kong, making sure to take the tram to Victoria Peak. They were able, also, to visit Vietnam, a nostalgic trip for Don.
It was a grand, adventurous life for both of them
Don was inordinately proud of his daughters and of their many accomplishments and of the decent, patriotic, caring, productive citizens they have become. He was also inordinately proud of spouses they chose and of how the two families are raising decent, patriotic and caring, productive children.
Don was born July 8, 1939, to A.M. (Doc) and Sarah Louise (Dannenfelser) Franklin in Linton, Ind. They preceded him in death.
Survivors include Frances; his daughters and their families: Sarah Heather (Aaron) Benson and Madeline Benson of Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Molly Wright (Michael) Lipham and Alec Lipham and Joshua Lipham of Ann Arbor, Mich.; and his sister Emily Sue (Tony) Gatto of Dyer, Ind., and their children; and cats Spookie and Olivia Underfoot.
Special friends to thank during Don’s end-of-life journey include Doug Klett; Kevin Mauzy; Jeff and Sharon Robinson and their family; James Mode; the guys at Scooters barber shop; Marshall Animal Care Center, especially Dr. Jen; Lin Johnson; the staffs at Oaklawn Hospice and Peachy Home Health Care; and the exceptional physicians at the University of Michigan.
Memorial contributions may be made to the Scholarship Fund at Lyles School of Civil Engineering—Purdue University or to the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society.
Kempf Funeral Home
The family invites friends to a visitation from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 17, at Kempf Family Funeral &Cremation Services, 723 U.S. 27 North in Marshall, followed by a brief service beginning at 3 p.m. Assistance with memorials is available at the Kempf Funeral Home.
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