- Date Of Birth: September 1, 1932
- Date Of Death: September 30, 2022
- State: Idaho
Franklin G. A. Yellen, 90, of Caldwell, Idaho passed away September 30, 2022 of natural causes. He was born September 1, 1932 to Joseph and Lillian Yellen in Bottineau, North Dakota. He attended grade school in a one-room schoolhouse where it was his job to start the fire in the morning. He had two sisters and three brothers: Jeanette, Marolane, James, Lawrence, and Ted. The family farm was near the Canadian border. He went to Canada on a Boy Scouts field trip.
After the Depression the family tried life in California and Arizona. They bought a farm near Salem, Oregon and raised strawberries. He enjoyed building control-line balsa wood flying model airplanes and learning magic tricks. Again, Frank worked on the family farm, and also at a cannery where he joined the Teamsters. In 1950, as a junior, he was Oregon’s high school state champion wrestler.
Always motivated and eager to learn, he took electrical and radio theory correspondence courses. He most liked power supplies. He wanted a related job in the military and joined the U.S. Army in 1953. He asked for radio schooling which required passing an examination board’s question battery. The questions were mostly about power supplies, his specialty.
Frank was in the Eighth Army’s Signal Corps in Korea. His primary job, originally, was to adapt naval radios for use on tanks. Later, he installed and operated President Park’s public address system during a speaking tour.
In 1955 he began working at the new family business, Utility Electric in Nampa, Idaho. (It opened in 1949.
He bought a house in Nampa. He took dance lessons, where he met Avalee Hurn.
Flight was in Frank’s blood. He didn’t become a commercial pilot, but he joined the Boise Squadron of the Civil Air Patrol, an auxiliary of the Air Force. He established the Nampa Senior Composite Squadron and was involved in many aerial searches for persons lost in the wilderness and crashed or lost aircraft. He rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Many of the Yellen family camping trips were to mountain airstrips in the forests of Idaho with the Civil Air Patrol to perform maintenance.
They divorced in 1981. In 2004 he married Faye Sorensen at Lucky Peak Reservoir. They loved the adventure and experience of travel. Many of their trips were written about in the Idaho Press Tribune. Also, he gave educational presentations on his travels at the Caldwell Public Library.
He was a craftsman with an artistic soul. Among friends and family he advocated for big ideas. Some were political. He talked about Zen Buddhism for a while and about buying a cabin in Siberia, because Idaho is as “hot as a firecracker” in the summer. He did tremendous amounts of work, free of charge, for customers who couldn’t afford new equipment. He was well-known and highly regarded in the Treasure Valley and beyond.
He was preceded in death by his parents Joseph and Lillian Yellen; his sister Jeanette McCormick; and his brother James Yellen.
He is survived by his brothers Ted and Lawrence Yellen; his sister Marolane Stevenson; his children
Carl Yellen and Colleen Nielsen; his grandchildren Alexander Yellen, Grant and Rachael Uzzel; his first wife Avalee Maiberger and his wife Faye Yellen.
