WILLIAM “FRANK” THOMPSON, age 90 years, a resident of Files Creek Road, Beverly, WV; and more recently a resident of Colonial Place, departed this life Wednesday evening, May 4, 2011 at Colonial Place in Elkins, WV.
He was born Tuesday, July 20, 1920 at Cravensdale, WV the youngest child of Grover and Mota Coberly Thompson. He had never married.
He is survived by four nieces, and one nephew: Barbara Jean Watts, Susanne Duane Smith, and husband Boyd, Debbie Lynn Snelson, and husband Bob, Maria Louise Dale and husband Donald; and one nephew, Grover Andrew Tacy, and nephew- in-law, Neil Arnold, several great nieces and nephews and great, great nieces and nephews.
Preceding him in death are: his parents, one brother, Bert Duane Thompson, and one sister Ruth Elizabeth Thompson Tacy, sister- in-law Wanda Ruth Taylor Thompson, brother- in-law, Cleo William Tacy, and niece, Elizabeth Ann Tacy Arnold, nephew Donald Ray Thompson, nephew-in-law John Lewis Watts, and two great grand nephews.
When his brother Bert was the age to attend school Frank wanted to go with him, the teacher told his mother to send Frank also. Each day they were rowed across the Shavers Fork River to the Faulkner one room school, where their grandmother had started the school sixty-three years earlier. Frank attended the Central School in Elkins, while his parents owned and operated the Thompson Hotel on Davis Avenue. He was a graduate of Elkins High School.
He timbered a tract of land on Dotson Run with his brother Bert; owned and operated a furniture store in Elkins. He was a veteran of the United States Navy, having served during WWII. He was a graduate with the class of 1949 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce, majoring in Banking. In 1950, he built and operated a motel between Ulmer and Alandale, SC on US Route 301. He planted and marketed Christmas Tree’s and Nursery stock, along with his father Grover Thompson.
Frank was a member of the American Legion, the Randolph County Senior Center, and was the first treasurer of the West Virginia Christmas Tree Association. He loved to travel; he once made a trip to Scotland, to visit where his father’s family originated and traveled to other countries throughout Europe. He also traveled through the forty-eight states and Mexico, many times. He was a protestant by faith, but when he was younger he attended church at the Woodford Memorial Methodist Church with his family.
The family will receive friends at the Lohr & Barb Funeral Home of Elkins from 5 to 8 PM, Saturday. Final Rites will be conducted at the funeral home chapel, Sunday, May 8, 2011 at 1 PM. The Rev. Jack Howell will officiate and interment will follow at the Mouse Cemetery at Cravensdale, WV, where the H. W. Daniel’s Post # 29, American Legion and the Tygart’s Valley Post # 3647, Veterans of Foreign Wars will conduct full military honors. The family suggests that expressions of sympathy be in the form of contributions to Mountain Hospice, 1600 Crim Avenue, Belington, WV 26250.
