Meat Cutter Frank A. Spane Won Prizes And Customers

Unlike the woman in the old TV commercial, Frank A. Spane never had to ask, "Where's the beef?"

It was right there in the locker and glass cases of Frank and Guy's Meat Market - a Federal Way institution he founded with a friend in 1963 and ran the past 13 years with his son Thomas Spane of Gig Harbor.

"He knew his meat-cutting," said his son. "But he was really a master sausage-maker. He learned the trade over the years and, being of Swiss heritage, searched out recipes to perfect. He played yodeling music while he made sausage."

Mr. Spane had won grand prizes the past three years in the Northwest Cured Meat Championships.

The Seattle-born son of Swiss immigrants died Sunday, May 19, of an aneurysm. He was 72.

"He was a real, old-country kind of man," explained his son. "Humble and simple. He didn't socialize outside his family much. But he liked to garden, and to fish for steelhead on the Cowlitz River."

As a boy, Mr. Spane took entry-level jobs at Auburn meat markets, then served as a cook's mate first-class in the Navy during World War II, where he finished learning the meat-cutter's trade.

After the war, he again worked in meat markets and supermarkets, then with his friend Guy Marks began his own meat market. His son bought out Marks' portion of the partnership in 1983.

Both of Mr. Spane's sons and his grandsons spent time working in the market. His son Frank Spane Jr. of Tri-Cities said it was something he really looked forward to - "I liked the atmosphere and the customers" - on college breaks.

Mr. Spane went to Switzerland in the late 1980s. Although he spoke no German, soon he was swapping sausage recipes - and sausage - with local butchers.

"We ate lots of meat, and old Dad always ordered extra eggs for breakfast," said Thomas Spane, who also owns health-food centers. "Surprisingly, he never had a cholesterol problem, and he was not overweight!"

Other survivors include Mr. Spane's wife of 50 years, Lois Spane of Federal Way; daughter, Joanne Goddard, Hayden, Idaho; sisters Betty Burgi of Fife, Mary Dettling of Santa Cruz, Calif., Louise Ridge of Des Moines, Pauline Hougen of Puyallup, and Margaret Tarte of Roche Harbor, San Juan County; and nine grandchildren.

Services have been held. Remembrances may go to Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, 1124 Columbia St., Seattle, WA 98104.