Frank ‘Lowell’ Solesbee
Frank ”Lowell” Solesbee left this earth Thursday afternoon on Oct. 3, 2019 followed by a celebratory Willamette Valley downpour.
His 79 adventure-filled years of loving life began on Feb. 23, 1940 in Murphy, North Carolina, with his father Jerry, mother Annice and 12 siblings.
Lowell’s short career as an elementary school boy wasn’t an indication of the profound impact his years on this earth would have on so many strangers yet to meet. His home base of Cottage Grove, Oregon for the most recent 65 years is scattered with monuments of his ability to perform a vast array of manly wooden creation and construction projects.
His reverence for wildlife and wilderness was ever present in his yearly, 11-month preparation for hunting season. He funded his relentless passion for hunting big game with a remarkably skilled 60-year career as a faller (logger). His world-ranked, most dangerous job left many piles of brush, perfectly cut stumps and countless friends.
Lowell’s only two mistakes in life were smothered by his quiet, endless kindness as a father to his lovely daughter and two handsome sons, as grandfather to seven amazing young adults and as great-grandfather to eight spirited children.
Among a long list of talents and lifelong principles, he possessed an ability to see past the fog of religion and man’s faults at times, to a deep love of Jesus. He found his church, his office and playground in the ”woods.”
A Celebration of Life and Reception will be held at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2019 at New Hope Baptist Church, 597 S. Front St., Creswell, Oregon. Arrangements in the care of Smith Lund Mills Funeral Chapel of Cottage Grove.
