Frank W. Crabill – Quitman County, Mississippi

Crabill, Frank W.

Frank W. Crabill, 94, formerly of Riverside, Connecticut, died on Saturday, February 16, at Edgehill, a retirement community in Stamford. Born in Red Cloud, Nebraska, he graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Nebraska in 1935. During his college years, he was a member of the famed Morrill South Party, led by Loren Eiseley, that carried out paleontological excavations in western Nebraska; the fossil sheep subspecies Merychyus crabilli is named for him.

Awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to Lincoln College, Oxford. Mr. Crabill received his B. A. in Jurisprudence in 1938 and in 1939 the Vinerian Scholarship, a prize awarded to the Oxford student who “gives the best performance in the examination for the Degree of Bachelor of Civil Law.”

After joining the Wall Street firm subsequently known as Dewey, Ballantine, Bushby, Palmer & Wood, he served as an officer during 1942-45 in the Army Air Corps, 486th Bomb Group. He returned to his law firm to become a partner in 1952. An ardent sailor, he became Commodore of the Riverside Yacht Club in 1971-72. He was also a member of the New York Yacht Club, the Innis Arden Golf Club, and the Rocky Point Club. In 1949 he wed Dorothy Jean Smith of Lincoln, Nebraska, a happy marriage ended only by her death from cancer in 1989.

He was predeceased by twin brothers, William, of Marks, Mississippi and James, of Lincoln, Nebraska, and a sister, Marjorie, of Southbury, Connecticut. He leaves a sister, Jean of Lincoln, and a brother, Robert of Dennis, Massachusetts; a daughter, Linda Crabill Dowling of Princeton, New Jersey; a son, Robert Ernest Crabill and two grandsons, Miles Andrew and Simon George of San Anselmo, California. A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday, March 1, at First Congregational Church, Old Greenwich, Connecticut. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be sent to First Congregational Church.

Quitman County Democrat, February 28, 2008

By United States Army Air Force – Pace (2003), B-25 Mitchell Units of the MTO, Osprey ISBN 978-1-84176-284-0 (USAAF Photograph), Public Domain, Link