Henry "Hank" James Franzoni Jr. - 1933 - 2019

 

Henry “Hank” Franzoni Jr. died August 10, 2019, of complications from Parkinson's disease. He was born April 2, 1933, in Clifton, New Jersey.
He attended Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, and shortly afterward enlisted in the Army during the Korean War. When they discovered his aptitude for languages, he was sent to the Army Language School in Monterey, California. There he mastered French and in 1955 was sent to Paris as a French interpreter at SHAPE headquarters. Before leaving, Hank met his first wife, Amanda, on a blind date. They married in Paris shortly thereafter.
Upon returning to the States, he attended Rutgers Law School and received his Juris Doctorate. Fresh out of law school, Hank got a job as a public defender just as the riots in Newark ignited. He won many police brutality cases for his clients and continued to work on civil rights cases throughout the 1960s, including the landmark case in 1966, State v. Roberts. During the 1970s, he went on to represent Episcopalian women in their struggle to be ordained as priests and was instrumental in their ultimate success. In 1976, the General Convention of the Episcopal Church approved the ordination of women to the priesthood, a first for any Christian denomination in the United States. He practiced law in Bloomfield, New Jersey, for 40 years and also taught law at Bloomfield College and Rutgers.
In 1983, Mandy, his wife of 28 years, died after a long battle with cancer. He met his current wife, children’s book author and illustrator Carolyn Bracken, a year later when calling to ask if her father, actor Eddie Bracken, would entertain at a New York Veterans’ Hospital. After a long courtship, they married in 1996, moving to Oregon one year later.
He became active with the Yamhill County Democrats, who asked him to run for the Oregon State Senate in 2004. His favorite part of campaigning was going door to door, meeting new people and talking over the issues with them.
Hank was brilliant, hilarious and one of a kind. We will miss his iconoclastic skepticism, his fantastic cooking skills, and his love of jazz, Bach, golf and life. He leaves behind his wife, Carolyn; children, Henry, Liza and Amanda; and grandchildren, Miles, Alaria and Felix.
The family is planning a memorial service sometime in October. Memorial donations may be made to Habitat For Humanity, in care of Macy & Son Funeral Directors. To leave online condolences, please visit www.macyandson.com

 

 

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