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World War Ⅱ Navy Seabee, Michigan Tech alumnus, retired Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory engineer and longtime Redding, Calif., resident Francis “Frank” Huegel died peacefully at home on Aug. 8, 2026. He was 101.
Frank was born on Nov. 13, 1924, and raised in Prohibition- and Great Depression-era Chicago, Ill. He and his older sister, now-deceased Agnes (Nick) Wagner of Concord, Calif., were the children of Frank (orig. Ferenc) and Magdalena Häusler Huegel (orig. Hügel), German-Romanians who emigrated from Romania with young Agnes in 1921.
Frank learned useful skills from his father, who maintained apartment buildings in Chicago’s West Barry Ave. neighborhood. Frank also was a graduate of Chicago’s Lane Tech preparatory high school. So when he was drafted into military service, at age 19, he was assigned to the 113th Naval Construction Battalion – the Seabees. He served in the New Guinea campaign of the Pacific war.
It was in New Guinea that he became sick from food contaminated by rats. Penicillin, first used for therapeutic purposes in 1941, saved him.
After the war, the GI Bill enabled Frank to earn a bachelor’s degree in metallurgical engineering in 1948 at Michigan Technological University in Houghton.
While living with fellow students in a home owned by Irish immigrant Bridget O’Donnell Greenleaf, this son of Romanian immigrants met Berdine Greenleaf. Berdine was the landlady’s daughter and, after she and Frank married in 1948, his wife till her death in 1997.
After Michigan Tech, Frank earned a master’s degree in metallurgy at University of Notre Dame.
His career as a metallurgical engineer included Connecticut Advanced Nuclear Engineering Laboratory in Middletown; and what is today Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, from which he retired in 1984 while living in Danville. Frank moved to Redding following Berdine’s death.
In addition to Berdine, Frank was preceded in death by a son, Andrew, who died at birth. Survivors include sons John, Peter, Anthony and Timothy, and daughter Rita Huegel-Reiley; eight grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren.
A funeral Mass is scheduled Sept. 8, at 11 a.m., at Our Lady of Mercy Catholic Church, 2600 Shasta View Dr, Redding, California.
A second funeral Mass is scheduled Oct. 20, at 11 a.m., at St. Ignatius Loyola Catholic Church, 305 Portage St., Houghton. This is the church where Frank and Berdine vowed to remain married until death did they part, a vow they kept. They will then lie side by side in a family plot at Forest Hill Cemetery (a.k.a. Houghton Cemetery), not far from where they met.
Memorial donations may be made to: Dominican Sisters of Hope, North Highland Avenue, Ossining, NY 10562.
To view Frank’s obituary or to send condolences to the family please visit www.memorialchapel.net
The Memorial Chapel Funeral & Cremation Service – Hancock Chapel is assisting the family with the local arrangements
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