French Lee Brandon Jr. was born on July 1, 1939, in Brooklyn, son of French Lee Brandon and Margareta (McCue) Brandon. His body was discovered in his apartment at 230 St. Paul Street (Decker Towers) in Burlington on December 12, 2025.
French Brandon faced an uphill battle from the very beginning of his life.
When he was an infant, his father, in the U. S. Navy, was stationed in Honolulu, so French was there when Pearl Harbor was bombed. He never got a real chance to know his father, who was killed in action when French was barely 3 years old — his father’s ship, the Naval destroyer U.S.S. Jarvis, was torpedoed, then bombed and sunk with no survivors in the South Pacific on August 9, 1942.
His mother sent him off to be raised by her alcohol-addicted relatives in Brooklyn. French would first really meet his mother, as a total stranger, when he was 7 years old. She proceeded to take him to Nebraska to live with a new family — including a stepfather who cruelly abused him
He was soon sent back to live with the relatives in Brooklyn. French always felt that the relatives who took him in did so primarily because of the war orphan benefits they received from the Veterans Administration.
Generally neglected and left alone in a city apartment all day, French was not enrolled in school regularly until high school. Thus he was primarily self-educated, having discovered the Brooklyn Public Library. (Andrew Carnegie was one of French’s heroes because of the wealthy industrialist’s promotion and funding of public libraries.) He became an avid reader of good fiction and a student of history and international relations.
French graduated from Mepham High School in North Bellmore, N.Y., in 1958. Subsequently, he attended Wabash College, the Goddard-Cambridge Graduate Program in Social Change and the Henry George School of Social Science. (For a time, strongly impressed with Henry George’s vision for a fair and just world, French became the director of the school.)
French worked as a caregiver and a community mental health counselor. His career was interrupted by drug addiction and imprisonment on drug-related charges — and, on two occasions, by exposure and public shaming for lacking required credentials for the professional work he was performing.
Despite these troubles, French managed to contribute positively to the community, particularly to his community at Decker Towers, where he lived for more than 20 years. He was widely recognized as a fierce advocate for residents in public housing. French performed outstanding service as a resident representative on the board of the Burlington Housing Authority.
As a volunteer at Turning Point, he once saved a human life by discovering and intervening with an overdosed client.
He was proud of the numerous awards that he was given for his service to the community of Burlington. Sadly, because of his addiction to drugs and its complications, he was never able to live up to his full potential as a community member and as a father. He deeply regretted that fact.
Always one to root for the underdog, French was an avid fan all his life of the Cleveland Guardians, formerly known as the Cleveland Indians.
French is survived by two children, French L. Brandon III of Ipswich, Mass., and Ursula P. Brandon of Sumner, Maine; Jim Rader, his friend of 67 years, and Jim’s wife, Meg Pond; and many friends at Decker Towers and throughout Burlington. He was predeceased by Phyllis M. Brandon, his former wife and the mother of his children; and by his very special friend, Judy Kolligian.
At French’s specific request, some of his ashes will be scattered in the Pacific Ocean, there to join his father’s remains. To honor his memory, and his struggles, you are invited to donate to the Fletcher Free Library, Burlington’s own Carnegie library, or to any other local charity that benefits people who are underfed, unhoused or struggling with addictions.
This article appears in March 4 • 2026.