Frank spent a highly varied life in public service and academia. His undergraduate career at Harvard was interrupted by service in the Pacific Theater in the Navy in World War II. After returning from the war and finishing both Harvard and Harvard Law, he settled in for about ten years in the general practice of law in Chicago, where both his father and his grandfather had also practiced.
At that point his career veered from the ordinary. The next ten years were divided between two very different forms of public service: five years in two foreign postings for USAID, and then five as the Regional Director for the Department of Housing and Urban Development for the Midwest.
In 1972 he returned to Harvard for an appointment at the Institute of Politics of the JFK School of Government, followed by a position for five years as the Director of Harvard's Office of Career Guidance and Off-Campus Learning.
He then spent six years at Haverford College as the Henry R. Luce Professor of Ethics and the Professions followed by two years with the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C. The last 30 years of Frank's career were spent in Austin at the University of Texas’s LBJ School of Public Affairs as a Visiting Fellow, then as a Senior Research Fellow. Much of his time from Haverford on was devoted to researching, analyzing, and generally getting people to think about the public policy consequences of telecommunications and computers in education and civic life.
Among Frank's joys were sailing, birding, and playing the recorder in small Baroque chamber groups formed of friends and family. He brought a harpsichord back with him from a post-war trip to Europe. He could play it a little, but he kept it mostly so that whatever accompanist was available would be properly equipped, and the music would sound as it should. That harpsichord continues to make music at the Emma Willard School, which two of Frank's great-nieces attended.
During his Austin years, Frank particularly loved to swim at the Barton Springs Pool, both for the naturally warmed water and the many birds that frequent the neighborhood. He acquired a quasi-official volunteer role as the developer and caretaker of a lush indoor garden in the changing house.
Frank is survived by a close community of friends in Austin and a more widespread one around the country and the world. He also leaves a large number of loving nieces, nephews, great-nieces and great-nephews, and even a few from the next generation.
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