Franklin S. Driggs ’52

Frank came to us from Bronxville (N.Y.) High School. His father, Edmund H. Driggs Jr., was in the Class of 1917.

Frank joined Terrace, was a member of the bicker committee and manager of club sports and, tellingly for his life’s work, the jazz club. He roomed senior year with Louis Lombard ’53.

He worked for a number of years for Columbia Records and Victor and RCA. In The Book of Our History he vastly understated his obsession for collecting memorabilia of the history of jazz. As his obituary in The New York Times revealed, he was a principal source for media in any manner concerned with the field of jazz. His collections held recordings (78 rpm), thousands of photographs and clippings, and every sort of record of the subject.

Frank was married to Shirley Melgar from 1963 until her death in 1989, and then had as his companion Joan Peyser, who died in 2011.

Frank died Sept. 20, 2011, at his home in Greenwich Village. He was survived by his stepbrother, Donald Brodie; a half-sister, Jean Pfister; stepchildren Dean Melgar, Reade Melgar, and Carla Sheil; and his nephew, Edmund H. Driggs ’71. To them all, the class extends sympathy for the loss of our remarkable classmate.