Norman — Don and Betty Frensley are used to familiar people and places. They were neighbors growing up in Duncan, fellow 1941 graduates of Duncan High School and business school students at OU. Their grandfathers served in Duncan’s first city government. Don went off to help win World War II while Betty waited for him in Duncan. They married in 1947 and have called Norman home since then.
They’ve spent the past few weeks packing up nearly a lifetime of Oklahoma memories. In a week, they’ll get on an airplane and fly to Denver, their new home close to two of their three children and some grandchildren. They’ll close one of life’s longer chapters and open a new one.
“This is hard. Very hard,” Betty says of the move. “We got married in 1947 and have lived here ever since.”
They’ll miss the people they’ve met along the journey. Episcopal Church friends. Bridge clubs. Travel groups. Rotary Club. Chamber of Commerce. Jaycees. Betty’s golf buddies.
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After a stint as an accountant and auditor for OU, Don took Harold Belknap up on an offer to work for The Transcript. It was a management dream team. Harold Belknap handled the advertising, Fred Tarman was the editor and Frensley became the newspaper’s business manager, handling all duties Mr. Belknap and Mr. Tarman sent his way.
“Fortunately, they didn’t need another journalist at the time they hired me,” he said.
Frensley and Belknap ran the newspaper for several decades. He signed my first real paycheck as a mailroom employee in 1972 and once gave me a 25 cent an hour raise for no good reason either of us could recall. Belated thanks. The paper sold in 1985, shortly after Belknap’s death in 1984.
His relationship with Belknap was solid. Belknap was quirky, memo-driven and could find humor in odd things. An old memo found in the newspaper’s boiler room recently gives explicit instructions on how to flip a toggle switch from summer to winter. “We would argue about something and five minutes later we would be laughing again,” Frensley said. “He was an amazing man. If he liked you, he really took care of you.”
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The newspaper and the city grew under their watch. The Frensley family grew, too. A son, Mark came first, then daughters Marcia and Kristen. They raised the children in a home on Grover Lane, then on North Sherry. After retirement, they moved to a condominium home near the university, never considering a move from Norman. But like many parents, they wanted to be closer to a child and the children wanted to be near them. A Realtor’s sold sign hangs on the property this week.
“Really, I’ve been kind of a one-man chamber of commerce for Norman,” says Don. “It’s a university town, a nice size, good schools, close to a metropolitan area. What else could you want.”
Betty agrees. “We travel to a lot of places but I’m always ready to come back to Oklahoma.”
Except for his time in the military and extended Hawaiian vacations, they’ve spent their entire lives in Duncan and Norman.
“You develop a lot of memories when you are here this long,” said Don. “We’ve enjoyed it and are going to miss everything about Norman.”
Andy Rieger366-3543editor@normantranscript.com
