FARGO, ND (January 25, 2011) – A memorial service will be conducted on Saturday for Franklin D. Lindquist, Sr., a former Evangelical Covenant Church missionary who died last Sunday following a brief illness.

The service will begin at 3 p.m. at Knollbrook Covenant Church, 3030 North Broadway in Fargo.

Lindquist and his wife, Margaret, were called by the Covenant in 1951 to serve in Congo in a ministry of teaching, evangelism and optometry. They resigned from active missionary service in 1970, but continued to itinerate.

Margaret Lindquist died July 31, 2008.

Franklin Daniel Lindquist was born July 19, 1919, in Rockford, Illinois, the son of Carl and Ruth Lindquist.

He received a Doctor of Optometry from Illinois College of Optometry. He received an Associate of Arts degree from North Park College and a Bachelor of Science in Education degree from Northwestern University, and later a Master’s Degree in Counseling and Guidance. He was a licensed minister with the Evangelical Covenant Church.

During World War II he served four years in the U.S. Army as a medic in the Pacific Theater. He worked in a medical evacuation hospital and helped transport the wounded across the Pacific. It was during the war that Franklin met and married Margaret Kalson, to whom he was wed for 64 years.

The couple served as missionaries in Congo where he used his talents in optometry, secondary education, and served as a minister. Following their return to the United States in 1969, he taught special education in the Rockford Public Schools. They lived in Edina, Minnesota, for 10 years before moving to Fargo in 2002.

In addition to his wife, he was preceded in death by his parents and two brothers, Kenneth and Dwight. He is survived by two sisters, Ruth Volle and Jane Ebey, and brother John Lindquist; children Thomas (Joan), Kurt (Linda), Franklin II “Lindy” (Cindy), and Sheri (Roger); grandchildren Jennifer, Timothy, Peter, Andrew, Jonathan, Daniel, Linden, and Nathaniel; and great-grandchildren William, Eva, Luke, and Jacob.

A memorial fund has been established for the Congolese Widows and Orphans Project. Memorial gifts can be made to North Park Covenant Church and sent to Congo Technical Assistance, c/o Robert Thornbloom, 5343 N. St. Louis Avenue, Chicago, IL, 60625. Please make a notation that the gift is for the Franklin D. Lindquist Memorial.