Rash's Surname Index
Notes for Frederick Rogers DRAYTON
K R. DRAYTON, 96: Newspaper Obituary and Death Notice
Philadelphia Inquirer, The (PA) - April 22, 1992
Deceased Name: FREDERICK R. DRAYTON, 96
Frederick R. Drayton, 96, who heard arguments for and against everything from chicken coops to condominiums during his 50 years on the Lower Merion Township Zoning Hearing Board, died Thursday at Dunwoody Village in Newtown Square.
Born in Philadelphia, Mr. Drayton moved to the township in 1924 and raised a family in a large stone house set on what was then farmland. It was three years later that Lower Merion adopted its very first ordinance dealing with zoning. For the first time, the government was telling a man what he could - and could not - do with his land. Soon, the predecessor agency of what would later become the zoning hearing board was established. Mr. Drayton joined it in 1936.
"When we started, there wasn't much in the way of apartment houses - and condominiums hadn't even been thought of," Mr. Drayton said during an interview in 1986, the year he retired at age 90.
He chaired the board for 36 years and took pride in the fact that he was always able to maintain control over the often spirited proceedings without resorting to a gavel.
The volume of business that came before the zoning hearing board increased after World War II, then soared during the '70s and '80s with the advent of such types of development as townhouses and condos. But although the number of commercial and multifamily projects increased, Mr. Drayton said, the classic case remained the homeowner who wanted to expand his home beyond the limits of the code.
Over the years, Mr. Drayton heard an inordinate number of "unnecessary hardship" cases in which appellants pleaded for leniency because, they claimed, the ordinance would cause them great suffering.
"Many have tried to get a larger house claiming somebody in the family was ill," Drayton recalled. "It's sad; but it's not a reason for a variance just because you've got somebody sick. So what?"
A graduate of St. Paul's School in Concord, N.H., Mr. Drayton attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he was a member of Delta Psi and rowed on the Penn crew in 1916.
Following graduation from college in the spring of 1917, he enlisted in the Army and served with the infantry in France in World War I. He sustained a severe leg wound on the battlefield, and was discharged with the rank of captain.
After a brief stint in pharmaceuticals, Mr. Drayton entered the insurance business. He spent 45 years with the brokerage firm of Stokes, Packard & Smith, serving as executive vice president. Following the firm's merger into Marsh & McClennan Inc., Mr. Drayton stayed on as vice president and then as a consultant until his retirement.
Mr. Drayton was a trustee of the Philadelphia Savings Fund Society, a trustee of St. Paul's School and a member of the board of the Preston Retreat, now a part of Pennsylvania Hospital. He was a vestryman at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Rosemont and later served as a vestryman and rector's warden at the Church of the Redeemer in Bryn Mawr. He also served as treasurer of the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania.
He was a member of the Racquet Club, the Philadelphia Club, the Gulph Mills Golf Club, the Merion Cricket Club, the St. Anthony Clubs of Philadelphia and New York, and the Mill Dam Club.
Surviving are his daughters, Ruth Drayton Dodge, Phebe Drayton Strong and Elizabeth Wistar Drayton Hopkins; 13 grandchildren, and 16 great- grandchildren.
Services will be at 10 a.m. Friday at the Church of the Redeemer, Pennswood and Old Gulph Roads, Bryn Mawr.
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