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Franklin Curtiss

09/28/2002

Franklin Curtiss, 89, of North Undermountain Road died yesterday at home. He was a selectman for 10 years and a Republican candidate for state representative in the 4th Berkshire District in 1992. Born in New York City on Feb. 9, 1913, son of Roy A. and Ethel Quinn Curtiss, he graduated from Browning School in New York City, Brown University and the Duke University Law School. He lived most of his life in Sheffield, where his parents had a home. An Army veteran of World War II, he served with the 1st Infantry Division, the Big Red One, from 1940 to 1945. He received the Expert Combat Infantry Badge and two battle stars, and was awarded the Purple Heart after being wounded in Tunisia during the North African campaign. He was president of an import-export company in New York City. As a founding trustee of the Berkshire Litchfield Environmental Council, he was active in successfully opposing a hydroelectric project that would have flooded 6,000 acres of Sheffield as well as parts of Mount Washington and Salisbury, Conn., in the 1970s. He also was a member of American Legion Post 340 and the Berkshire County and Massachusetts bar associations. He leaves his wife, the former Jean Exton, whom he married in 1949; three daughters, Claire McDonald of Mohegan Lake, N.Y., Lucie E. Curtiss of Los Angeles, and Juliette T. Curtiss of Tarrytown, N.Y.; and three grandsons. A son, Franklin Curtiss III, died in a climbing accident in 1970. FUNERAL NOTICE -- Franklin Curtiss died Sept. 28, 2002. He was a loving and generous husband, father and grandfather. He also leaves three grandsons, Nicholas and Graham Curtiss-Rowlands and Benjamin James Franklin McDonald. He was predeceased by three brothers, Roy A. Curtiss, a noted naturalist and zoologist; Sidney Quinn Curtiss of Sheffield, former state representative, and Thomas Quinn Curtiss, a Paris theater critic. The funeral will be conducted Friday, Oct. 4, at 11 at Christ Church in Sheffield by the Rev. Susan Crampton, pastor. Burial will follow in Pine Grove Cemetery. There will be no calling hours. Memorial donations may be made to HospiceCare in the Berkshires through FINNERTY & STEVENS FUNERAL HOME, 426 Main St., Great Barrington, MA 01230. Remembrances and condolences may be sent to the family through finnerty@bcn.net .

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