Tredyffrin Easttown Historical Society
History Quarterly Digital Archives

Source: April 1961 Volume 11 Number 3, Pages 48–49

Franklin Wiseman Wandless

J. Alden Mason

Page 48

Franklin W. Wandless, President of this Club for the past five years, was born in Brooklyn, New York, May 17, 1882, the son of Walter W. Wandless and Mary Ruebeck Wandless, who brought him to live in Camden, New Jersey, when he was a small boy. In these two cities he attended public school, and subsequently studied at the Spring Garden Institute and in the International Correspondence School. At the early age of twenty-one, he married Fannie Read of Philadelphia, to which city he changed his residence. For about five years they kept a hardware store at 57th and Thompson Streets. In 1918 they moved to Berwyn.

Originally, Mr. Wandless was a mechanical engineer, connected with the Smith Loom and Woolen Machine Company, where he designed and helped install the looms used in industrial plants. Following this type of work, he joined with a group who pioneered in vapor-vacuum heating, and from then on his interests were with the heating profession in the Philadelphia area. He was one of the pioneers in this profession and became a recognized authority and expert in this subject which he taught at the Drexel Institute of Technology and the Spring Garden Institute. He was registered as a professional heating engineer in both Pennsylvania and Connecticut, and was a member of the Mechanical Engineers Society, the Heating and Ventilating Engineers' Society, and the Philadelphia Chapter of the Pennsylvania Society of Professional Engineers. While Vice-President of the Professional Engineers he organized a junior branch known as the Engineers-in- Training, to assist young graduates in engineering to pass the State Board examinations; he continued as chairman of this group. His last association, from which he retired two years ago, was as heating, plumbing, and air-conditioning expert with the Philadelphia consulting engineer Ernest D'Ambly.

While teaching at the Spring Garden Institute he wrote a brochure on "Figuring Radiation," a simplified form for using the British Thermal Unit as the basis for computing.

Franklin Wandless was a capable genius who could do, make, or repair almost anything, with professional results, whether an oil painting or an instrument. Always interested in astronomy, he built a refractory telescope, designed and built a folding loom, also a grandfather's clock. The making

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of the latter was described by his daughter in her article on "Clockmakers of Tredyffrin and Easttown Townships" in the Quarterly for April, 1957 (Vol. IX, No. 3). Several of his oil paintings received honorable mention in exhibitions. He also made an historical map of Tredyffrin and Easttown Townships that was printed and widely sold and praised. Cabinetmaking and ceramics were among his other hobbies, and, like all good suburbanites, he took proper care of his house and his garden on Warren Avenue, having built a small lily-pond in his back yard.

Nor was he lax in his obligations to the community. He founded the Berwyn Boy Scout Troop No. 1, now known as No. 11, and was Scoutmaster for some years, as recounted in his article in the Quarterly, "History of Boy Scout Troop No. 11, Berwyn" (Vol. XI, No. 1, 1960). Like many of us, he had his regular hours on the airplane observation post on the Township Building during the late war, and did his job with his usual conscientiousness. During the earlier war he sold bonds and designed the firing mechanics on the guns which were made at the Remington Arms plant in Eddystone, where he worked.

Mr. Wandless was a Mason and an Odd Fellow, a member of Thomson Lodge 340, F. & A. M., at Green Tree, and a Past Grand (1918) of Protection Lodge 243, I. O. O. F., in Philadelphia.

For almost fifteen years he was one of the most prominent and hardworking members of the History Club. First elected in 1952, he was re-elected in 1956 and bi-annually thereafter. Also in 1952 he began drawing the illustrations for the Quarterly and continued as its artist until the time of his death.

The Wandlesses had three children. A daughter, Edith, died in infancy. Read Franklin, who died November 7, 1937, was a deeply felt loss. Myrtle Wandless teaches Home Economies at Nether Providence High School in Wallingford; she holds a B.S. in Education degree from Temple University and an M. A. degree from Columbia University.

Franklin Wandless passed into eternal rest on September 1, 1960. He will be long remembered for his constant kindliness, cheerfulness, helpfulness, ability and reliability.