Francis Edwin Skipp

Dear Mardi, Peter, David and Jonathan,

It has been so very long since we have had any contact, but I well remember the sailing ship that you lived on at Dinner Key Marina and Bob,Debby and my visit/sail with you when we lived in Homestead so many years ago.

I fondly remember Skippy and all of you. I recall how proud I was of his professional achievements.

Fred Glassbrook sent me the obituary and I didn't realize that Skippy was 85...more than 20...

The Skipp Family,

My deepest and sincerest condolences. I will always remember his smile.

Dru

We regret very much that we will not be able to attend the memorial service today, but Frank and his family are much in our thoughts.He was a wonderful colleague and a master teacher. We will miss him.

Gene and Nancy

April 23, 2005

Dear Family of Dr. Skipp,

As a counselor, I frequently speak to some of the young drug addicts with whom I work about ¡°life altering experiences.¡± I try to assure them that, should they be open to and graced by life altering experiences, they and their histories will never be the same.

Forty years after walking into a classroom in the Memorial Building at the University of Miami, I still recall the life altering experience of...

You inspired me with your literary brilliance, your passion for literature and your love of the sea.

As a Literature and Philosophy major at the University of Miami in 1980-1981, I took your Literature of the Sea class where you acquainted me in a very profound way to the American Literature classics of Herman Melville (Moby Dick, Billy Budd)and Ernest Hemingway (The Old Man and the Sea),among others.

You possessed the ability to ignite in your students a passion...

We send our sincerest sympathy on the passing of your Dad.

Dr.Skipp was my professor of American Literature in 1967. He instilled in me a love of literature and popular music. I hope my three sons encounter a teacher like Dr. Skipp during their educational journey. One who makes you look forward to ever single lecture, one who brings the subject alive and one like Dr. Skipp makes that indelible impact on my life so almost 40 years later you still remember his brillance and will always feel privileged to has crossed paths with him.

When I was a junior member of the UM English Department, Frank Skipp, as much as any of my older colleagues, was friendly and accessible and unpretentious. I remember sitting in on his Hemingway lectures, and he paid me the honor of attending a reading of mine at Books & Books when my first book of poems was published. I've thought about him often over the years, and am grateful we were colleagues. My condolences to his family.

Not an hour goes by that I don't find myself thinking about calling Frank to share some item of information or a joke. He was such a lively and interested man. Here is a photo found on the Net showing Frank during a pre-sortie briefing in England during WWII.