Frank Darnell

Frank Darnell has died, aged 93. He follows his wife of 64 years, Frances Walrath, who died in 2015. He leaves behind their children,: Joe (Joan) and their daughter, Anna; Sara (Gary) and their children Chandra (Dave) and Oran (Eloh); Alfred (Sunita); and goddaughter Anne Hunter (Bob). He is survived by his sister-in-law Rita Walrath, brother-in-law, Larry Walrath and sister-in-law Marcia Walrath. There are also adored great grandchildren from Chandra, Olav and from Oran, Manu and Ari, as well as numerous nephews and nieces. His siblings Dick, Minnie, Owen, Laura, Mary and Martha are all deceased. Born in Cripple Creek, Colorado on September 27, 1925 to Julia Ethel (Pender) Darnell and Joseph J. Darnell, Frank grew up in Cripple Creek and Denver, Colorado except for an interlude in Morris, Illinois during the Great Depression. He spent his youth unrestrained, skiing and climbing the mountains of Colorado. With the arrival of World War II he left high school early to work on construction of the Alaska Highway through Canada where he learned to survey. He then followed his brother Owen into the U.S. Merchant Marine sailing mainly on Victory ships in the Pacific and was awarded a number of battle ribbons, including one for the invasion of Okinawa. Shortly after the end of the War he became a desk officer but continued to sail until the summer of 1946. Following his wartime service winters were occupied by skiing and attending Colorado State University where he earned a bachelors degree in science in 1951. Summers were spent climbing and working as a surveyor for the U.S. Geological Survey in Montana and Alaska. In the course of his college years he met Frances. They married in 1951 and spent their honeymoon driving the "finished" Alaska Highway to a job teaching sciences and math in the two-teacher Homer, Alaska high school. There they started their life together in earnest in a small cabin. Joe was born in 1952, and Sara and Al were added to the family in subsequent years. Homer was the beginning of a long career in Alaskan education and life in Alaska. Frank went from teaching high school sciences to a career in administration in Alaskas schools system that included schools and districts in Homer, Kenai, and Juneau. In 1966 he was called to the University of Alaska in Fairbanks to direct a new initiative to design culturally responsive schools for Alaskas Natives and other Indigenous peoples of the Circumpolar North. Except for a year in the States so Frank could get a doctorate in education and a sabbatical at the Scott Polar Institute at Cambridge University, Frank and Fran lived in Fairbanks until 1980. Frank retired from the University in 1978. After two years at the University of Western Australia in Perth, Australia they returned to the US and based themselves in Ashland, Oregon beginning in 1982. Even though they had a house in Ashland, the lure of the North was strong, and they spent the next 23 years teaching and collaborating with scholars at the Scott Polar Institute at Cambridge University, the University of Oslo in Norway, and the University of Greenland in Nuuk, Greenland. Other trips were made all over the world. Although they traveled the world, their thoughts were never far from the North, and Alaska in particular which seemed to have always been their home. They returned to live in Alaska in 2014. The trips to Greenland and Norway came to an end when Frank retired from the academic world to care for Fran, who was diagnosed with dementia in 2008. That was the beginning of an unexpected turn in life that demonstrated the character of their marriage and the love they had for one another. Frank was tenacious in dictating every step and stage of Frans care; he did not stray nor blink from the role of her primary caretaker. And Frans unquestioning trust and unbreakable faith in him made a powerful statement of how well matched they were. Their life was an unwavering partnership that would last until the end. Even with Frans passing the partnership was alive in the love and grief that Frank lived with until November 9, 2018 when he passed away at his home, quietly in his sleep. The family is particularly grateful for the care he received from Home Instead caregivers including but not limited to Cheryl Keisor-Steinke, Michele Pamer, and Laura Caperton who made it possible for him to live at his own home in his final years. The family will hold a private gathering in his memory and that of his beloved wife Frances at a later date.