1924 - 2007

Frank Houghton Watson of Glen Arbor died at home on June 18, 2007, after a lengthy bout with cancer. He was 83.

He was born in Detroit on April 5, 1924, the son of Frank Hume and Kathleen (Sauve) Watson. His family summered on Crystal Lake in Beulah where he moved in 1938.

A 1942 graduate of Benzonia High School, he also attended Oak Ridge and Longfellow Schools in Royal Oak; Alger, Doty, and Hutchins Intermediate Schools in Detroit and Farragut School in Bay City.

Frank served in the Army of the United States from February 3, 1943, to January 6, 1946, taking basic training in heavy weapons at Ft. McClellan, Alabama, and going overseas with Company M of the 376th Infantry Regiment of the 94th Infantry Division. The Division moved to Camp Shanks, New York, in July of 1944 and crossed the Atlantic Ocean to Scotland on the Queen Elizabeth I, which carried the entire 94th of some 15,000 plus unattached personnel, and the British crew. The unit saw action in Brittany, along the Moselle and Saar rivers in the Palatinate, and at Ludwigshafen on the Rhine as part of the Third Army. The unit also saw duty in the Ruhr and in Czechoslovakia. Frank returned to New York City January 1, 1946, aboard the Hood Victory, which battled a roaring gale almost the entire way from LeHavre, France.

On September 1, 1946, at Traverse City First Congregational Church, he was married to Mary Lynn Pettitt of Benzonia. They then moved to East Lansing where Frank received a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a Master’s Degree in History and Political Science from Michigan State College (now Michigan State University), and belonged to Phi Kappa Phi National Honorary Society. He spent the next forty years working as a journalist. In 1959 he moved his family to Glen Arbor. During his career, Frank was associated with newspapers in Edgerton, Ohio, St. Charles, Traverse City, and Leland.

Frank was preceded in death by his wife of 59 years, Mary Lynn, on October 13, 2005. He is survived by two sons; Stephen Patterson “Pat” (Karen Lepley) Watson and Frank Hubbell (Jan Dechow) Watson; and a daughter, Megan Kathleen Watson (Jeff Forrest). All three children live in Leelanau County. He is also survived by five grandchildren; Stephen Frank Watson, Jessica McDaniel Jones, Elizabeth Westfall Jones, Tracy Erin Watson, and Sarah Rohr Watson.

The family wishes to thank Munson Hospice for their excellent and compassionate care.

No funeral services are planned at this time.