Dale Fremont Sprankle ’53

Dale died Feb. 19, 2022, in the Santa Cruz, Calif., home where he lived with family. 

He had resided in the San Francisco Bay Area for more than 60 years but was born in Kingsport, Tenn., and came to Princeton after graduating from Redland High School. At Princeton, he majored in architecture and was a member of Quadrangle Club. Dale graduated from Princeton with a master’s degree in architecture and then completed Navy OCS in Newport, R.I., before doing a three-year tour of duty with the Civil Engineer Corps in California, where he met and soon married Carolyn Plesse. He joined and eventually became president of an architectural firm based in Palo Alto and was involved in major projects across the country. 

In the late 1970s, he and his two partners moved the firm to San Francisco as Sprankle Lynd & Sprague. He also formed a joint venture in Melbourne, Australia, that required shuttling back and forth across the Pacific for more than 20 years to lead the planning of large commercial projects in that country. 

Dale and Carolyn loved the opera, wide-ranging travel, and long weekends at the home they built near the beach in Santa Cruz. Carolyn died in 2018, just a month before their 62nd wedding anniversary. Dale is survived by their two children and five grandchildren.