BAR HARBOR – Frank Elden Schmelzer, 105, died Feb. 23, 2012, in Bar Harbor. He was born July 31, 1906, in Malden, Mass., the son of Henry L. P. and Bertha (Streck) Schmelzer.
Frank graduated from high school in Billerica, Mass., in 1924, and attended Northeastern University, studying electrical engineering. After a brief period selling insurance, he entered the printing business in 1930 with Back Bay Electrotype. After several years during World War II working simultaneously at Back Bay and in the transformer division at Raytheon Co., he completed his career as vice president of sales for Donovan & Sullivan, a photoengraving company in Boston. Frank was active in town government in Stow, Mass., where he brought up his family, serving at one time as chairman of the board of selectman. A man of diverse interests and abilities, Frank built three telescopes and an observatory, and served as the president of the Harvard Amateur Astronomers Club. He built several boats, canoes and a house, had a great interest in watercolor painting, and was an avid walker and bicyclist. He restored fully six antique automobiles, completely disassembling and reassembling three and doing all the mechanical and the spray paint work himself. His pride and joy was a metallic green 1939 Packard straight eight touring car with a beige top and fender wells. Throughout the years Frank pursued actively his interest in literature with a particular affinity for Shakespeare and Goethe. He also loved to quote passages from various poems he had learned as a youth. A favorite line from Goethe was “The morning came, its footsteps scared away the sleep that lightly hovered o’r me.” At 99 he started studying classical Greek so that he could read the Iliad in its original language. Along the way Frank had a deep and abiding commitment to his family and nature.
Frank was predeceased by his loving and beloved wife of 72 years, Carroll Blanning Schmelzer, in 2009; and by his son, Frank E. Schmelzer Jr., in 2005. He is survived by three daughters, Jane S. Reynolds and her husband, James, of Mount Desert, Margaret Durgin and her husband, Roger, of Napa, Calif., and Dorothy S. King of Ashland; two sons, John Schmelzer and his significant other, Jane Fogg, of Franklin and Henry Schmelzer and his wife, Cynthia Livingston, of Mount Desert; and many grandchildren, great-grandchildren, nieces and nephews.
Services will be private. Contributions in Frank’s memory may be made to Southwest Harbor Library, 338 Main St., Southwest Harbor, ME 04679 or Jesup Memorial Library, 34 Mount Desert St., Bar Harbor, ME 04609. Arrangements by Jordan-Fernald, 1139 Main St., Mount Desert. Condolences may be expressed at
www.jordanfernald.com.