Frank Krandell was born in Chicago, Illinois on 20 April 1912.  His parents were Frank and Rose Kriz, immigrants from Czechslovakia.  He received a BA in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois in 1935.
     In 1936, he married Lois Marie Gilbert, a fellow student from the University of Illinois.  About this time, also, he changed his name from Kriz to Krandell.
     Eventually, he was able to obtain an engineering job with the Westin Campbell Company, but one having more to do with mechanical engineering than with electrical engineering. During WWII, he served in the Army Signal Corps, but this career was cut short by a diagnosis of tuberculosis.  Krandell entered a sanitarium at Oak Forest, Illinois and was not expected to live.
     He did recover, by sheer force of will aided by several experimental surgeries, and was discharged from the sanitarium in June of 1943.  Re-united then with his wife and son, he viewed each ensuing day as a special gift from God. 
     In 1947, he moved his family -- by then including a daughter, a mother-in-law, and a niece as well as a wife and a son -- to Fort Wayne, Indiana.  There, he obtained an engineering job with Hosler & Pierson (later, Hosler, Inc.) and remained with it until age 72. 
     Frank Krandell was a lay leader in his church, trinity Methodist and later Christ United Methodist: Sunday School Superintendent, Chairman of the trustees,  member of the board, and member of the choir, among other positions.  He was active with the local rescue mission, was a member of several engineering societies, and was at all times a devoted husband and father/grand-father.  He died on 8 April 1996, in Fort Wayne.
      (Data and photograph from his daughter, Fran Williams.)