Lasting Memories

Franklin Howard Olmsted
Nov. 23, 1921-March 14, 2015
Palo Alto, California

Franklin enjoyed a long and useful life. He was born in Los Angeles as the oldest child of Franklin Osburn Olmsted and Geraldine Ines LaFetra. Brothers Richard and Gerald joined them in 1930. In September 1942, he enlisted in the Navy; in December, graduated from Pomona College; and in April, was commissioned ensign and found himself teaching navigation and close-order infantry drill (!) and other classes to older officers and midshipmen at Fort Schuyler in the Bronx. (He was called the petulant boy wonder by his Navy friends, he learned later.) In June 1945, he began training for amphibious landing in Japan at Oceanside and Camp Pendleton. In August, Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended all that. His last job in the Navy was taking care of the boats that moved sailors from boat to shore in San Francisco Bay.

He then spent two years studying and teaching at Pomona College and at Claremont Graduate School, where he earned a master's degree in 1948. He went to work for the U.S. Geological Survey in 1949.

Franklin and Jean Walls Morosco were married in 1955. Daughter Ann was born in 1956 and son Warren in 1959. The family moved for work reasons from Auburn, California, to East Landsdowne, Pennsylvania, where Franklin earned a Ph.D. in geology from Bryn Mawr College, and then to Idaho Falls, Idaho; Yuma, Arizona; Reston, Virginia; and Palo Alto. His work involved ground-water studies and later geothermal research studies. Beginning in 1977, he coordinated geothermal studies for all USGS Water Resources Division geothermal projects. He retired in 1988.

After retirement Franklin continued to work for the Survey as a volunteer. From 1994 to recent days he kept busy in Foothills Park clearing trails, cleaning picnic areas, rehabilitating trail signs, updating nature trail markers and the trail brochure, leading occasional nature hikes and, beginning in 1997, helping to clear invasive plants. From 1991 to 2005 he was treasurer of the Peninsula Camellia Society and, until recently, a poll worker. He was a longtime member of the AAAS, the Geological Society of America, Sigma Xi and (for almost 60 years) the Sierra Club.