Frank (Francis) passed away 8/25/2011. Frank was born on June 22, 1930, on a farm in Crystal, North Dakota. His early years were spent in Crystal and in a small farming community near Bager, Minnesota. He was the middle child out of 7 brothers and sisters. He talked of walking to school even in the winter months. “We did not have school busses.”

His mother moved the family to Bremerton Washington during the WWII and opened a dry cleaning and tailor shop where they did sewing and repair to military uniforms Frank worked in the shop pressing and sewing, one benefits of the shop was when the sailors shipped out they would store their suits with his mom so Frank showed up at the dances as the best dressed kid in a zoot suit.

Frank had an interesting and full life traveling across the globe as a young man. During WWII with his older brother severing in the armed forces Frank not yet 18 obtained permission to join the U. S. Army, and proudly served in the Berlin airlift, Franks duty station was in the divided city of Berlin.

He was one of the “four men in a jeep” remembering that experience as a 16 year old and wondering why; an American, Frenchman, Russian, and Englishman were in a jeep for surveillance in Berlin, he quickly figured it out. He also served as an honor guard for the movie star Rita Haywood at a USO show, although he thought her “to skinny”.

On return to the U S Frank went into the Merchant Marines, Sailors Union of the Pacific, traveling in around the world to Japan, Tahiti, India, Shanghai, South America and everywhere in between but he preferred to sail on the Alaska Steam vessels. He used his experience gained from being a merchant marine to the waterfront as a longshoreman and 1963 he retired from sailing and became a registered Longshoreman.

Frank transferred into Local 98, Walking Bosses, and Foreman, about 1972. He worked general cargo, steel, fruit, on Alaska bound cargos.

As a longshoreman he had often worked Pier 25, grain, having learned boarding and machining of grain. He would come home from the grain docks sit in his chair and pour the wheat dust out of his boots, his girls used to have a contest to see which boot had more. He started working as a foreman on the pouring jobs at 25 and then to Pier 86 when that facility was ready.

Pier 46, Hanjin, was in Frank’s future. He worked Hanjin until time for retirement in June 1992 at the young age of 62. Stating that he wanted to make sure he had enough time to really enjoy his retirement years.

He stared it off with a nice laid back vacation with his girls and sister going to Hawaii to celebrate and taking them around the islands that he used to sail to as a young man. His two granddaughters were born shortly after and he had all the time in the world for them and really loved being a grandpa.

Frank also discovered Yuma and became a snowbird. He had sun and fun throughout the winters then returning to Seattle for the summer months. In Yuma he enjoyed the longshore breakfasts that the pensioners had once a week never missing a week. They would have a nice breakfast and tell stories about the job they loved.

Frank is survived by his daughters Carla Corbit and Tammy Kemp, granddaughters’ Alexa and Arielle, his sisters Galye, Cheri and younger brother Ronn and the many friends he made throughout his life.

Frank told us he would much prefer to have everyone celebrate and remember his life, not dwell or mourn on his passing and so we will be holding a Celebration of his life on Saturday September 17th at his daughter Tammy’s home.