Frances Landreth Loved The Variety, Excitement Of Life As Military Wife

There are career military, and then there are career military spouses - a calling in its own right.

Frances Thomason Landreth, who died March 10 at 100, proudly numbered among the latter, "serving" the United States via her Army-officer husband for half a century.

Of her years as an Army wife, she said, "I loved it all - the bugle call, the cannons going off, the handsome men in uniform, the cavalry charges, the reviews, the polo games, the dances every Friday night. I enjoyed it all thoroughly."

At every Army base, this "old-fashioned but opinionated Southern lady - an iron hand in a velvet glove," as one family member said, could be found designing sets and sewing costumes for base shows.

She enjoyed entertaining, particularly conversing with officers with colorful careers. She also had a penchant for gardening.

Mrs. Landreth and her husband, Col. Earl Landreth, U.S. Army-retired, had lived in Washington, D.C., where their friends included Maj. and Mrs. Omar Bradley and Col. and Mrs. George Patton.

Recalling an evening as Patton's dinner partner, she said, "George was very much the gentleman in speech. He was not coarse in the company of ladies as he may have been with his troops."

Despite her dedication to The Life, and to rearing two daughters, Mrs. Landreth had a rich life of her own - a life of portrait-painting, garden design and fashion.

Born and reared on a Tennessee tobacco plantation, Mrs. Landreth employed servants and had beautiful things. She became a schoolteacher and taught briefly before meeting her husband on a trip with relatives to the Philippine Islands in 1915. She had gone along to care for their children.

She returned to the South Pacific to marry in 1919 and began her life as a service wife.

Mrs. Landreth had many talents: She sewed stylish clothes for herself, ate masses of fruits and vegetables grown by her own hand before it was popular to do so, and remained able to climb the stairs in her Broadmoor mansion until a broken hip sidelined her six years before her death.

When she was 90, she prepared 500 plants for a Children's Hospital annual plant sale.

One thing she would not do: tolerate fools or the unattractive, whether people or home-design.

"She loved company, and conversation," said granddaughter Barbara Lennhoff of Seattle, her caretaker the past six years. "But once when I invited some ladies for tea, Grandmother whispered, `How can we get rid of these little old ladies? They're not very interesting.' She would rather be alone than waste her time."

Her husband died in 1967. She never dated or remarried.

"But every night before going to bed," said daughter Margaret Wesselhoeft of Seattle, "she'd kiss her fingertips and touch them to his picture."

Other survivors include her sister Sara Flynn of Franklin, Tenn.; daughter Nancy Brinker, San Antonio, Tex.; eight other grandchildren, and 12 great-grandchildren.

Services were held. Burial will be in Arlington, Va. Remembrances may be made to Children's Hospital & Medical Center or to the Arboretum Foundation.