Elizabeth Frank Obituary

Elizabeth Barker Frank was born on March 28, 1932 in Baltimore, Maryland, the oldest child of William Halsey Barker and Mary Lee Randol. Her father died of cancer when she was a teenager. Betty had four siblings, Lewellys (Lew), twins William (Billy) and Randol (Randy), and sister Margaret (Sugie). Surrounded by family, she died at home in Englewood, New Jersey on May 26, 2025 from complications due to congestive heart failure.

Betty graduated from Chatham Hall and Bryn Mawr College. During college, she spent a year living and studying in Florence, Italy. After college, she worked as an art historian for the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

At the wedding of mutual friends, she met Victor Harry Frank Jr. of Philadelphia. They were married in 1957, made their home in Manhattan, had three sons, and spent summers in Wainscott on Long Island and visiting Deer Iland in the St. Lawrence River in upstate New York. Theirs was the marriage of a liberal Democrat to a conservative Republican that lasted 53 years until Vic's death in 2010.

In 1968, Betty and Vic moved to Englewood, New Jersey. There, Betty got involved in local affairs such as the League of Women's Voters, the Women's Club of Englewood, and later, the Jewish Community Center, the Southeast Senior Center for Independent Living, and the Bergen Family Center. She was instrumental in founding the Flat Rock Brook Nature Center. She attended St. Paul's Episcopal Church.

From 1987 until 1993, Betty and Vic lived in Manilla, Philippines where Vic was American Director of the Asian Development Bank during the Reagan-Bush administrations. There, they introduced the expat community to the annual Ground Hog Day party, and she made many new friends and traveled extensively in the Far East.

Betty and Vic returned to Englewood, where Betty continued to collect the artwork, objects, photographs, and mementos that filled her home with charm and wonder, and she resumed her involvement in local affairs such as the LOWV.

She was predeceased by her husband, brother Billy, and her daughter-in-law Enid Wonnacott Frank. She is survived by her sons, Halsey, Harry, and Jonathan, and grandchildren, Lila, Laura, Doris, Eli, and Alex.

Betty was beautiful inside and out, loving, gracious, generous, fully present and engaged in the world, always thinking of others, and idealistic to the end. The family will hold a memorial in Englewood later this year.