Town Meeting member Frank Wells dies

By Mary Carey
Staff Writer

Published on July 04, 2008

Accompanied, sometimes, by his beloved cat Boots, Frank Wells was a fixture at Amherst Town Meeting as well as a member of the Public Transportation and Bicycle Committee, Housing Partnership and Fair Housing Committee.

But his devotion to the community didn't ensure he would spend his final days surrounded by friends and neighbors. Wells, who had leukemia, lost his Ann Whalen House apartment last month, and was living in his car when he suffered his third bout of pneumonia, which led to his death at Cooley Dickinson Hospital Wednesday.

Longtime Housing Authority member Judy Brooks remembered Wells, 62, as "a wonderful man."

"He brought Ann Whalen alive," Brooks said. His friends said they would hold a memorial service for him at Ann Whalen House in the coming days.

Town Meeting members most often saw Wells in the company of his black-and-white cat, Boots, who Wells brought to meetings on a leash and who sometimes wore a "non-voter" sticker. Wells also had four children and four grandchildren.

Brooks, a longtime teacher, who had taught all of his children at Pelham Elementary School, recalled how proud Wells was to be in the company of his grown children and grandchildren, at a ceremony when she retired in 2005. "He was a public servant in the true sense of the word," said Select Board Chairman Gerald Weiss. Weiss recalled that when Wells introduced himself he would say that he was from the "pedestrian transit and bicycle committee."

"I think that's what he wanted (the Public Transportation and Bicycle Committee) to be called," Weiss said. "He was always in a good mood. You never knew what he was about to say. He always had some opinion about something, but it wasn't predictable."

Raised by his grandparents in Pepperell, where he met his ex-wife Sharon Wells, of Pelham, Wells moved to Amherst with Sharon in 1965 to attend the University of Massachusetts, graduating with a bachelor's and master's degrees in exercise science.

He taught physical education at Hampshire Regional High School in Westhampton, where he was also an athletic director, for about 20 years.

His strong identification with physical education was probably the reason Wells could always be seen wearing shorts, even in the dead of winter, Sharon Wells said.

The Wellses divorced about 12 years ago, Sharon said, and he eventually moved to the Ann Whalen House.

Wells struggled with alcoholism and financial problems, Sharon said, and the two drifted apart, but had she known he was living in his car, she would have invited him to stay at her house, she said. She only learned of it, after receiving a call from the hospital saying that he had died. "I wish he had said something," she said. "I had just run into him in the post office about a week before. I never would have let him live in his car."

Wells was a great help to fellow members of Alcoholics Anonymous by several accounts. An anonymous poster to a local Internet forum who claims to be one of them, said Wells would not discuss the terms of his eviction even with those who knew him best. "All I can say is that he was a gentle and humble man in the years that I got to him," the poster identified as "~t" said.

Amherst resident David Keenan said he had been approached by Ann Whalen resident Bill Elsasser, who was concerned about Wells and wondered whether Keenan could offer him somewhere to stay.

"It's a sad story and it shows what can happen in Amherst. We could do better," Keenan said.

"Frank loved the whole Amherst scene," Keenan said. "He had a good sense of humor, he got involved helping people. He never really asked for any help."

Besides his ex-wife Sharon, Wells leaves three sons, Erik, of Bridgewater, Andrew, of Colorado, and Nicholas, of Pelham; a daughter, Tamara Modig, of Princeton; and four grandchildren.

Boots is now living with Amherst firefighter Bill Dunn and his family.

Mary Carey can be reached at mary.carey@att.net.