Frank Vernava died as he lived “” a remarkable man of many creative talents who was determined to make his own choices. He took his life five days before his 85th birthday.
Frank lived for decades in a big old house on Linden Street, but moved to a small apartment in the Bella Vista elderly housing high-rises earlier this year. The new place was much too small to exhibit all his paintings “” and it seemed too small to contain him, though he was a diminutive man, physically. He died on Nov. 30.
I first met Frank shortly after I moved to New Haven in 1987, at Dance Free, a post-hippie gathering of people who liked to dress loosely and dance freely, alone or with one, two or many partners. Frank loved to dance.
He’s pictured here on his wedding day with his late wife, Irene.
Frank loved many things, and was good at many things. At a memorial service on Friday at the Unitarian Society of New Haven in Hamden, where he was a longtime member, the Rev. Kathleen McTigue read excerpts from a letter he left, listing everything he had done with his life. A partial list included painter (of houses and canvasses), woodworker, hotel clerk, cable splicer, inventor, laborer, college student, farmworker, fence builder, hitchhiker, dishwasher, soapboxer, radical organizer, political worker, and student of life. He was, above all, a generous soul “” generous with whatever material things he possessed, and especially generous with his time, his energy, his love, all of which manifested in delightful, meaningful friendships with people young, middle aged and old.
The music at the service included the old Wobbly song, “Joe Hill,” sung in a recording by Frank’s idol, Paul Robeson, and a beautiful live rendition of “The Rose.” It also included lots of poetry by Frank’s favorite poet, Walt Whitman. In his lusty love for life, Frank was a lot like Whitman. Here he looks more like early Marlon Brando, or early Paul Newman.
After a previous suicide attempt about a year ago, his daughter Gina came down from Massachusetts and spent a lot of time with him, and readied his East Rock house for sale.
Frank was in some pain from various ailments, and he couldn’t dance anymore. As Rev. McTigue said, “We tried to tip the scales toward life, not death, but they were tipped the other way by his conviction that death represented a doorway he was ready to pass through.”
“He fooled us,” said his friend Ruben Abreu, and that seemed to be how most of us felt. Every time I saw Frank he was upbeat and smiling, and seemed genuinely glad to still be around. Well, Frank, it’s hard to think of you as gone, but I have to say, I respect how you made your exit.
