Franklin Parker, engineer on Burma Road

Franklin Peabody Parker was a man of many achievements, an architectural engineer who worked on several of history's memorable projects such as the Manhattan Project and the Burma and Ledo roads during World War II.

Yet, friends said, he was a modest man and never talked about his successes, except perhaps of the marriage he and Katharine Bosworth Niles shared for 70 years. It was the perfect marriage, family and friends said. Their union ended when she died three months ago. Mr. Parker, a longtime resident of Wellesley, died Aug. 3 at North Hill in Needham, where he and his wife had been cared for in the Skilled Nursing Facility. He was 92.

His children said the cause of death was listed on the death certificate as failure to thrive.

"After Mother died, Dad just lost his desire to live," said his son, Theodore of Wellesley.

The Rev. John Nichols of Wellesley, interim minister at the First Unitarian Church in Providence, gave tribute to the strength of their marriage at a recent graveside service for Mr. Parker, in which he paraphrased Unitarian minister Theodore Parker's description of a perfect marriage from before the Civil War: "A perfect marriage of 50 years or more is something so beautiful that if the sun were God, it would stop the world from turning and shine on that marriage so everyone could see it."

Franklin Parker and Katharine Niles began their married life in 1937 in a log cabin in the mountains of southwestern Virginia, where he was working on his first engineering project, a hydroelectric dam, according to their son.

Franklin followed the footsteps of his father, Theodore Bissell Parker, a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology who had a distinguished career as an Army officer in World War I and was chief engineer on the Tennessee Valley Authority, Theodore said.

Franklin Parker's family had deep roots in Wellesley.

The family of his mother, Estelle Peabody, "helped establish the Town of Wellesley," his son said. Her father was a local real estate developer, an editor of the Wellesley Townsmen, and an early moderator of the Town Meeting, Mr. Parker's son said. Her uncle was the first police chief in Wellesley. On Katharine Parker's side, her father, Harold Niles, was an early selectman in Wellesley.

Franklin Parker was born in Salt Lake City while his father was there on business, but the family moved back to Wellesley when he was about 5. He graduated from Wellesley High School in 1932, president of his class.

He attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was captain of the school's hockey team and a member of the ROTC. He graduated in 1936 with a degree in architectural engineering.

Though his family had stature, Mr. Parker's son said, he told stories of taking menial jobs during the Great Depression, "including hauling rotten apples from his future father-in-law's orchard to the cider mill in South Natick using his family's Model A."

During World War II, Mr. Parker served as an officer in the Engineering Corps assigned to New England coastal defenses, his son said, and to India as liaison to the British High Command in New Delhi, attaining the rank of major.

Helping to maintain the Burma and Ledo road projects in Burma and northeastern India, "he made a personal road inspection tour that involved traveling alone for hundreds of miles by jeep," said his daughter, Anne Schmalz, of Boston.

After he returned home in 1944, she said, he was recalled to active duty as an aide in the Manhattan Project, which spawned the atomic bomb. She said the family knew little about his work in the project.

In the early 1950s, Mr. Parker returned to school and graduated from Harvard's Advanced Management Program.

As an architectural and consulting engineer, Mr. Parker worked mostly on commercial buildings in a variety of projects, his daughter said. He designed a plant where Howard Johnson processed its famous clams, she said, and a factory where Trappist monks made jam.

In 1967, when he was in his 50s, he retired because of failing eyesight.

"The unique thing about Father," his daughter said, "was what he made of his retirement," referring to the extensive community work he did in Wellesley as a member of town boards and commissioner and a founding member of its Human Relations Service.

Mr. Parker's strong personality, high standards, and leadership ability were recognized beyond Wellesley, his daughter said.

As a board member of Tufts New England Medical Center, she said, he was among those who negotiated with community leaders in Chinatown when the center wanted to expand into that area.

"He so enjoyed his contacts there," she said, that when he was asked to serve as acting executive director while a permanent one was found, he agreed, "providing he receive no remuneration."

He served in that role twice.

Mr. Parker and his wife made good use of his early retirement by compiling the family's genealogical history. In the 1980s and 1990s they traveled throughout the Northeast in a minivan, tracing their roots in graveyards, cellars, and at historical societies. Afterward they wrote several books about their families.

Mr. Parker, described by his children as a handsome 6-footer, had a large sense of humor to match.

"Dad had a sense of the theatric and liked to recite poetry and limericks," his daughter said. Until recently he could still recite 'The Cremation of Sam Magee."

He also wrote poetry for birthdays and sang in the choir of his church.

"He was an engineer but had a classical mind," said Priscilla Parker, Theodore's wife.

In addition to his son and daughter, Mr. Parker leaves two additional sons, David, of Kent, Conn., and John, of Barnstable; 14 grandchildren, and 33 great-grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. Sept. 9 at the Unitarian-Universalist Society of Wellesley Hills. Private burial will be in Woodlawn Cemetery in Wellesley.