Lawrence P. Frank

Lawrence P. Frank, age 81, passed away on December 14, 2022.

He was born on January 27, 1941, in Canton, to Leo and Marcelline Frank.

He graduated from Louisville High School in 1959, attended John Carroll University and graduated from Mount Union University with a Bachelor of Science in 1963.

Larry taught math and physics at Marlington High School for 3 years and worked as a Quality Control Engineer at TRW and PCC Airfoils in Minerva for over 40 years.

He was a member of The Christadelphians of Louisville and the Washington Ruritans. Larry also volunteered at Beech Creek Botanical Gardens. More than anything Lawrence loved spending time with his family, especially his grandchildren.

Lawrence was known to friends and family as Larry, Grandpa, Brother, Uncle, Dad, and Yarl. Yarl is a playful nickname that Carolyn coined and is Larry spelled backwards, used often and endearingly later in life. Larry was a patient and thoughtful man, always willing to share his time and a story, or two. With these stories, he taught all of us life lessons we carry and use today.  When Larry’s kids were younger, he taught them the economics of hard work by growing sweet corn. We remember the red crank-start Farmall A tractor from his Dad’s farm that was used to plant, till and harvest several acres of sweet corn every summer.  Larry loved that tractor. The whole family participated in the summer process, and the reward was handing down those life lessons of work, as well as some legendary sweet corn.  Later in life, Grandpa taught the next generation lessons also, helping with schoolwork, science fair projects, teaching, woodworking, and sharing the family history. He was always there for his grandchildren in sports, school, and as a friend and mentor.

A love of the outdoors and working outside was lived by Yarl in many ways. With Carolyn, he visited and revisited many National parks for long hikes and had a large collection of ball caps from those parks. He loved biking on trails, especially rail-trails, like the Nickel Plate Trail in Louisville. Watching and feeding birds was a favorite pastime, and he had a large collection of feeders in the tree line behind his house.  Of course, yard work was fun to Larry!

As time moved on, The Bible and the Word of God became very important to Larry.  He spent a lot of time working to understand the Bible and found joy in living according to the Word of God with Carolyn at his side. We are thankful that this brought comfort and peace as Larry moved through his final journey with cancer.

Lawrence, Larry, Grandpa, Brother, Uncle, Dad, and Yarl was always there for us with love, support and a joy for living life. Through his life, he demonstrated how to live with enormous love, patience and support to all.  At the end, he passed with a familiar smile on his face. We are blessed for that.

Those left to cherish his memory are his wife, Carolyn McKimm Frank, whom he married on August 25, 1962; his children, John (Tricia) Dessecker Frank, Geoffrey (Katie) Lawless Frank, Amy (Craig) Craver; six grandchildren, Conner (Jon) Weick, Caleb Frank, Nate Craver, Andrew Craver, Christopher Frank and Jaidyn Frank; his sister, Suzanne (Steve) Lockwood; and a brother, David (Brigitte) Frank.

He was preceded in death by his parents and his brother, Jerry Frank.

A funeral service will be held at Cassaday-Turkle-Christian Funeral Home on Saturday, December 17th at 2:00 p.m. with a visitation one hour prior. Interment will be at Alliance City Cemetery.

Memorial contributions may be made to Agape in Action (https://www.agapeinaction.com/ or   The Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank (https://www.akroncantonfoodbank.org/)

Arrangements are entrusted to Cassaday-Turkle-Christian Funeral Home 75 South Union Ave Alliance, Ohio 44601.