Frank Perry Barnett, Jr., aged 99 years, died peacefully on October 29, 2024.
A graveside service will be held at 11 a.m. on Saturday, November 2 at Maple Hill Cemetery, with the Rev. Coy Hallmark officiating. Pallbearers will be Gregg Bragg, Ted Fountain, Dr. Jake Noel, Dr. Frank Barnett, Matt Barnett, Matt Jones, Matthew Barnett, and David Burkhalter.
Frank was born in Montgomery, Alabama on October 5, 1925. He attended school in Montgomery and graduated from Sidney Lanier High School, where he was an All-State tackle. He had multiple scholarship offers to play college football, including Auburn, but when WWII broke out, he joined the US Navy and served in the Pacific, where he earned several medals including a Purple Heart. He was in Tokyo Bay when the treaty was signed.
Frank returned to Alabama and attended Auburn University, then transferred to Huntington College, where he met and then married Edith Chaney in 1950. They lived in Montgomery, Birmingham, then Huntsville, and raised three children. Frank was a pharmaceutical sales representative for Lederle Laboratories (Wyeth) and loved travelling around the state visiting doctors and pharmacists. As the saying goes, he never met a stranger. He retired in 1988.
Frank also enjoyed doing family history research with his mother and brother Ben, antique cars, and Dixieland Jazz music. Frank was a member of the Masons and the Huntsville First United Methodist Church. He enjoyed fishing and hunting and shared this passion with both of his sons. Frank was a talented artist and woodcarver. His waterfowl carvings are well-known among his Alabama acquaintances, as well as are his water-color paintings of still life, buildings, and landscapes.
After Edith died in 2002, Frank spent much of his time at his lake cabin in Slap Out on Lake Jordan, where he got together with his Montgomery area friends.
Frank kept a journal his entire life, which he turned into a large book in his later years. The book documents his service in WWII, and many colorful stories of growing up in Alabama during the depression and post-depression years. Even in his last years, his memory was amazing, and he told stories of things that took place in his young life in complete detail.
Frank was preceded in death by his parents, Frank Perry Barnett, Sr. and Elizabeth Katherine “K.T.” Treadwell Barnett, and his wife, Edith Glenn Chaney Barnett.
Survivors include two sons, Frank S Barnett, “Sandy” of Huntsville, and wife, Gayle Porter, and Matthew G. Barnett of Tuscaloosa, and wife, Jamie Haas; daughter, Edith K. Barnett of Huntsville; brother, Ben Barnett of Tuscaloosa and wife, Laurie; three grandchildren, Matthew Barnett, Hannah Haas Burkhalter, and Lucy Barnett; and two great-grandchildren.
The family appreciates the recent caregivers at Whitesburg Gardens and Fleming Farms, and Freda Gaines from Right at Home.
