Tom Frank of Parkersburg wanted a Viking Funeral.

“We promised him we would,” said his best friend Gary Meyer of Marietta. “Tom made me swear we would do it.”

Last Saturday along a creek in Wood County, Frank’s family and friends carried out his wishes for a Viking Funeral complete with a scale model Viking longship and bagpipes.

A friend crafted a Viking ship, about 12-inches wide by 28-inches long, out of balsam and some pine. The Viking replica had a square rig, a front and back arch and a handkerchief for a sail.

Notes from family and friends on “thoughts to Tom for his journey into the afterlife,” along with Frank’s picture, were placed in the ship, Meyer said.

Greg Frank of Moore, S.C., led a prayer and gave the eulogy for his father along the creek. Others also spoke about Tom’s many accomplishments and his desire to live life to the fullest.

Frank died on Nov. 26, 2017, at Camden Clark Medical Center. He was 78 years old.

After the eulogy, the miniature ship was launched into the creek and set on fire in a Viking tradition. However, flaming arrows were not shot into the air to set the small ship ablaze.

The ship sailed upstream about 100 feet, then downstream and back upstream again before sinking.

Toni DeVore played “Robin Adair,” “When the Battle is Over” and “Amazing Grace” on the bagpipes along the creek.

“It was a really nice ceremony,” said Meyer, who worked with Frank at Shell Chemical Co. in Belpre for 34 years. Frank retired as supervisor of operations and maintenance at Shell, Meyer said.

Saturday evening, friends and family gathered again at the 19th Street Country Club in Parkersburg to toast Frank’s life. Friends from several states attended.

Photographs of scenes from his life were placed on a club wall.

Amy Armstrong, Frank’s significant other, said it was wonderful that people came out to celebrate his life. Many “Tom stories” were told Saturday night at the neighborhood tavern.

The 19th Street Country Club was Frank’s “favorite watering hole,” Meyer said. “He loved having hot dogs for lunch there.”

Frank also loved spending time on his boat on the Ohio River, Meyer said, and being with family and friends.

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Sharon Lowe hopes anyone “who ever stepped foot” in the former Woodmar Plant in Washington Bottom will attend the 15th annual picnic at Parkersburg City Park from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. June 23.

Lunch will be served around noon at the picnic shelters A & B near the park pond and log cabin in the reunion of Marbon/Borg-Warner Chemicals/GE Plastics/SABIC retirees, former employees and their families.

The Woodmar Plant was home to these companies at various times beginning in 1957 with Marbon and ending in 2013 with SABIC.

Lowe said she began organizing the picnic 15 years ago after the plant stopped providing a picnic for employees.

“The only time we would see these people (former employees) was when we went to a funeral home,” Lowe said. “There had to be a better way,” she said.

Lowe began working in the Marbon cafeteria in 1966 at the age of 18 and remained at Woodmar for 34.5 years. Her family lived across from the plant along Route 892, or Dupont Road.

“Basically, we were family,” Lowe, 70, said of working at Marbon and Borg-Warner Chemicals. “Those were good years.”

At one time, the Woodmar Plant cafeteria served breakfast, lunch, an evening meal and a night meal, Lowe said. The serving line at the plant cafeteria would stretch to outside the building, she said.

The picnic started slowly — “on the spur of the moment” — 15 years ago with about five people attending, Lowe said.

Last year’s picnic attracted 88 people and Lowe expects this number to grow to 100. A group photo is taken every year.

The picnic committee furnishes the chicken, paper products, bottled water and plastic utensils,while attendees bring a covered dish.

Lowe jokingly tells those attending the picnic this might be the last year for the event.

“They all say, no,” she said.

Contact Paul LaPann at plapann@newsandsentinel.com