Roll Call Tribute

SPARKMAN HILLCREST FUNERAL HOME & MEMORIAL PARK obituary
7405 WEST NORTHWEST HIGHWAY, DALLAS, TX 75225 | 214-363-5401

Franklin Dee Welch
January 28, 1927 - June 22, 2017

Franklin Dee "Frank" Welch, 90. died very peacefully at his home in Dallas surrounded by what he loved most. His daughters; his loving and devoted care-takers, and some of the things that reflect on a life well lived: his books, a few of his many awards, family photos and his own more notable photographs (taken in the 1950's in Paris as a Fulbright Scholar at the Ecole des Beaux Artes-armed with a beautiful new wife, Katherine "Bittie" McGar and an old Leica 3F). Sentimental collected trinkets and gifts lay about here and there. The walls are adorned with a wonderful art collection. Classical music or the sounds of Turner Classic Movies (Frank was a life-long movie lover with an almost encyclopedic knowledge of the artform) wafted comfortingly through his room. His interests and long standing friendships with young and old alike continued all his life and reflected his broad erudition and insatiable curiosity.
It must be said he died like he lived: humbly and very well, indeed.
Born in Paris, Texas on January 28, 1927 to Bonnie Dee and I. Frank Welch, young Frank moved with his family to Sherman, Texas where he grew up. He often loved telling about fond and vivid childhood memories where his parents would take him to have his picture made. They would climb a long, dark hallway to the second floor of a downtown building, arriving at Wear's Studio. Frank was immediately taken by a big, square skylight that spilled in an abundance of light. This fascination with the many characteristics of natural light was to have an important and lasting effect on his work all through his career.
After serving in the Merchant Marine and the Army as World War II was beginning to come to a close and then with the help of the G.I. Bill, Welch enrolled as an architecture student at Texas A&M University, overcoming his insecurity of algebra, geometry and trigonometry-prerequisites for calculus which is required to complete a degree program in architecture: V={5.0, < x< {-50, 5 < x >+10} = (or something like that). Frank earned his Bachelors Degree in 1951.
He and Bittie arrived in Houston back from Paris in 1953 to welcome the birth of a new baby boy, Baker Thompson Welch, and Frank needed to get some work, pronto. He found some, drafting mostly, at a series of Houston architecture firms. Then a baby girl, Liz, arrived. One evening his life was about to change. He and Bittie were invited to a fortuitous dinner party where they met Texas' pre-eminent regionalist architect, O'Neil Ford. Welch and Ford sat up all night drinking and talking and before he knew it, the sun was coming up and Frank had been hired by his hero, "Neil," as Ford was affectionately known. Welch was assigned by Ford as an on-site-architect of the Texas Instruments Semi-conductor Building in Richardson, TX. The family moved from Houston to Richardson. Another baby girl, Woo, arrived.

Welch was commissioned for his first solo job in Midland in 1959, remodeling the home of John and BLee Dorn; again fortuitous timing worked in Frank's favor.
He took office space in the Odessa basement beneath his generous brother-in-law's haberdashery- Welch hunkered over his brightly lit drafting table-among the mannequins dressed in the latest gentleman's attire.
Then came: The Birthday.
Another Dorn commission, the simple but iconoclastic family shelter set on a bluff overlooking a private ranch and the austere wilds of West Texas in Sterling County, it quickly garnered national attention, becoming a highly lauded and influential work of regional modern architecture, winning the Texas Society of Architects' 25-Year Award-humbly sharing the honor with Louis Kahn's Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth-
More work was coming in and Frank was able to move his young family and practice to Midland where he would stay for the next 25 years.
Frank Welch and Associates relocated one more to Dallas in the the early 80's, where he continued to work for another 35 years, putting out some of his best and most noted designs in residential, educational, ecclesiastical and recreational projects throughout Texas and beyond.
He lectured often at Universities, and served on many Design Award Juries. He wrote extensively about architecture and published two well received books:
PHILIP JOHNSSON AND TEXAS in 2000, and his memoir ON BECOMING AN ARCHITECT in 2014, and the book THIRTY HOUSES in 2015. It is no small thing to note that Frank was honored with more awards in Design Excellence than any architect in Texas. He wouldn't like that kind of gasconade. Never the less, he earned his place in and on this world.
Important accolades: The TSA Lifetime Achievement Award; The Preservation Dallas Award; his Paris Photographs in the Permanent Collection of the Dallas Museum of Arts.
This year he was highly honored with The Texas Medal of Arts Award and the prestigious George Foster Harrell Award, both of which he was unable to attend. But he great friend and great architect Max Levy of Dallas remembered when accepting the George Foster Harrell Award: "Frank was a hero and a friend. He was charismatic but humble; those qualities characterize him and his work. Work that is renowned, like him, for being both worldly and local. The Cultural eyes of Texas are upon him, and having been upon him for so many years, they have become better eyes."
Frank is preceded in death by his parents, his son Baker Welch and his grandson Nicholas Caroland.
Frank is survived by his two daughters and sons-in laws, Elizabeth "Liz" Welch Tirrell and Edward Tirrell of Austin; Katherine "Woo" Welch Caroland and Trey Caroland of Nashville, and grandsons Franklin Tirrell of Houston and Clay Caroland of Dallas. He is also survived by a cousin, Clara Stoles of Deport, TX.
He is also survived by nieces Susie Shands and Kathy Balch and nephew Philip Oviatt and their families.
He may be remembered by contributions to the Dallas Historical Society; the Baker Thompson Welch Scholarship Fund at the Choate-Rosemary School, Wallingford, CT or the Nicholas Cage Caroland Scholarship Fund at Montgomery Bell Academy, Nashville, TN.
A small graveside service will be held at Fairview Cemetery in Midland on Tuesday, June 27, 2017 at 10:30am followed by a service at the Midland Episcopal Church of the Holy Trinity at 11:30.
A Memorial Celebration of Frank's life is being planned to take place in Dallas in several weeks