Francis Bryan Wakefield Iii

Francis (“Frank”) Bryan Wakefield III, age 93, died peacefully on December 28, 2021 at his home in Atlanta.

Frank was the son of the humble pastor Rev. Francis Bryan Wakefield Jr. and the pianist/organist/choir director Gladys Comforter Wakefield. Frank was born in Charleston, South Carolina (where his sea-faring grandfather lived); grew up in Gainesville, Florida; and took years of piano lessons from his mother, without apparent success.

At age 17, Frank and his family moved to Mobile, Alabama when his father was installed there as rector of All Saint’s Episcopal Church. His neighbor, the late Robert Edington, paid a call on the arriving family, and Frank and Robert became fast friends. The two young men enjoyed many a warm, post-war, summer’s day at Gulf Shores swimming and flirting with Mobile debutantes under the watchful eyes of their younger sisters Nancy Wakefield and Laura Ellen Edington. In the meantime, Frank graduated the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee; worked summers with Robert driving a Coca Cola truck and restocking machines; and, finally, served as a Lt. JG in the United States Navy on the destroyer USS Hugh Purvis and, later, as acting captain of the large harbor tug USS Tuscarora on its mission of towing a target-practice barge back and forth in the tropical waters off Key West. That last assignment once allowed Frank to take the crew for an epic shore leave in Havana.

Upon completion of his Navy service, Frank proposed to Laura Ellen and they wed. The love birds were married for 62 happy years and produced three sons: Frank, another naval seafaring sort; Michael, a lawyer like his uncle Robert; and Bryan, a one-time PGA professional who predeceased his father this year. Frank gave 30 years of his labor to International Paper Company, which took the family on an adventurous route from mill-to-mill and south-to-north; from Mobile to Moss Point, MS; to Ticonderoga, NY; and eventually to Connecticut. At IP’s corporate headquarters in New York City, Frank’s gregarious nature and southern accent had a needed positive effect on grouchy locals. During their years together, Frank and Laura were active, backbone members of each local Episcopal church, serving in virtually every capacity, including stomping out the beat of the hymns, cooking at many a pancake supper, and serving on the vestry. They were also instrumental in starting a new parish in Hampstead, North Carolina. They later relocated to Atlanta and took many a grand trip overseas while enjoying their retirement.

Frank enjoyed laughing, telling stories, sledding down hillsides, driving in the snow, getting lost, skippering his boat, singing in choirs and barbershop quartets, traveling, and miraculously skipping golf balls across lakes. But mostly, Frank loved Laura, who predeceased him in January 2019. In addition to his sons Frank and Michael and their wives – Pam Wakefield and Rebecca Mick, Frank is survived by grandchildren Bryan J. Wakefield and Erica Bittner, Michelle (Wakefield) Rushing and Michael Rushing, Laura (Wakefield) Parsons and Derek Parsons, Benjamin Wakefield, and Daniel Wakefield, as well as four great grandchildren.

Services will be held at Holy Innocents’ Episcopal Church in Atlanta, Friday, January 7 at 11:00 a.m., followed by a reception. A live stream will be available through the church website or Facebook page. In lieu of flowers, memorials can be made to the church.