Keep Up the Fight
A posthumous tribute to Oregon Trail “fighter” Gregory Franzwa.
By: Jana Bommersbach 06/01/2009
He invited people to “listen to the sound of silence” and to feel a part of American history. Don’t be surprised, he warned, if you get “willies big-time,” feeling the emotions and struggles of those long-ago travelers.
He certainly lived the motto of OCTA: “The Oregon Trail is part of your heritage. Honor it, protect it, preserve it.”
But the wagon trails weren’t his only focus. In 1992, he founded the current Lincoln Highway Association to preserve the first transcontinental road for the automobile in the U.S., which ran across 12 states from New York City to San Francisco and was named in honor of slain President Abraham Lincoln. Gregory didn’t want people to forget the Lincoln Highway that first tied the East to the West. In 1996, he published the first of his state-by-state series of hardcover books on the Lincoln Highway. The six states west of the Mississippi are in print—California, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska and Iowa—while his book on Illinois was in process at his death. All his books are available through Patrice Press.
In announcing his death, Wischmann noted: “This is a huge loss for the community of Trail preservationists, but we can take some of the sting out of it by reminding ourselves that there is still much work to be done and that Gregory is counting on us to continue the work he started so many years ago.”
Gregory is survived by the woman he called his “soulmate,” Kathleen A. Colyer, who he married on December 23, 2000, after a storybook romance centered, appropriately, on the Oregon Trail. He also leaves two sons, a daughter, two brothers and his stepmother.
And he leaves behind many who shared his passion for American history and appreciated that his life’s work made him an Old West Savior.
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