Dana Edmund Frye

Dana E. Frye died at his home in Asheville, N.C., on December 2. He was 88. During his life, Dana never rested on what he had accomplished. Instead he always seemed to ask, "What am I going to do next?" He first rose to prominence as the president of Tuttle Press (later Artfaire), a paper-goods company in Appleton, Wis. He retired from the company in 1981. A few years after, he was invited by the Rose family to be president of their company, Converting, Inc., a maker of party supplies and other paper goods located in Clintonville, Wis. He remained there until 1993. It was later a source of great pride to him when Converting was named as Wisconsin's small manufacturer of the year. He will be remembered by family and friends for his quick wit and charm, generosity and strength of character. He was an indefatigable man who was always on the move. His profession called for travel (at one point in the late 1960s he was a Million Mile Traveler on three different airlines), and he thrived in a life that allowed him to exercise his deep curiosity about the world and his love for meeting new people. He was committed to the arts and to helping others, particularly children and teens, in need. He served as treasurer of the Appleton Symphony, as a resident "parent" for the ABC House in Appleton, and later as an active board member of the Caring for Children organization in Asheville. The only child of Percy and Florence Frye, Dana was born on January 24, 1921, in Marlborough, Mass. His father was the foreman at the family's shoe company, known today as Frye Boots. Dana entered the Navy during WWII and served for six years, mostly aboard the USS Prairie, a submarine tender stationed in the South Pacific. After his discharge, he attended Tufts University on the GI Bill and received a degree in Business. Once out of college, he joined Dennison Paper Products as a salesman. He and his family moved from Massachusetts to Wisconsin's Fox River Valley in 1963 when he was offered a position as vice president of Tuttle Press under then-president Henry Bailey. Before the move to Wisconsin, Dana and his first wife, Jan, raised their three children in Wayland, Mass. The couple divorced in 1967. He met his second wife, LeBrun, in 1969 while on a business trip in Boston. They eloped a few months later and at the time of his death had been married for 40 years. They had one child together. He and LeBrun relocated to Asheville in 1990. Dana Frye is survived by his wife LeBrun; his four children, Meredith (and partner Tom Kremen), Thomas, Richard and Carrie (and husband Lowell Allen); eight grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren. The family will hold a private celebration in his honor at a later date. They request that in lieu of flowers, contributions be made to Caring for Children (www.caring4children.org) or the Asheville Humane Society (www.ashevillehumane.org).