Frank Whitehouse, of Central Islip, can-do business owner, dies at 83

On the eve of her wedding, a bride asked Frank Whitehouse to press her dress quick at his dry cleaning business. Then hours before the "I do" moment, she returned with the gown because her sister’s dog had used it as a fire hydrant.

"No problem," the owner of Whitehouse Cleaners answered both times, his family said.

"We’re going to figure out how to do it" was his father’s philosophy in life, said his son Francis J. Whitehouse, of Islip: "There was never a thing where he would be like ‘This is insurm ountable. I can’t get past it.’

"He was a 'yes' guy. He was  incredibly generous, easy to talk to, very comfortable in any situation and rarely got upset."

A problem solver

Frank Whitehouse, who delivered a cleaned dress to the bride on her wedding day, died Aug. 8 of complications from heart failure and diabetes. A longtime East Islip resident before he moved recently to Central Islip, the retiree was 83.

He was only 12 when his father died but kept working on motors at the family’s Oldsmobile dealership in Babylon, Whitehouse Motors, those who knew him said. Whitehouse also got jobs at boatyards and acquired a small motorboat while in high school, able to take apart the engine and reassemble it, they said.

When he joined the Army during the Vietnam War, Whitehouse figured he and his friends could skip a little work at Fort Dix in New Jersey by putting headphones on in the library to avoid hearing duty calls, recounted his wife, Claire Whitehouse, of Central Islip. As a homeowner, he would stare at the innards of broken-down appliances, figuring out  how they operated, then fixing them, she said.

"He was smart," Claire said. "You didn’t have to ask him a question twice about something, especially about motors. He was intuitive about mechanics."

On their wedding night, the couple found themselves stuck in Sayville traffic while heading for a night out in Manhattan. The delay gave Frank a chance to pick up an earlier conversation about spending their $400 wedding gift money to buy a rug cleaner in Wisconsin, and that’s what they eventually did, she said.

Evidence of Frank's talent for big ideas and getting out of a tough spot was on display in the 1970s when he bought a Bay Shore cleaners without any experience in the field, then, after struggling, turned Whitehouse Cleaners into a thriving venture with patrons near and far, his family said.

Employees were directed to greet customers as soon as they walked in, family members said. Whitehouse fixed the machines and learned from fellow dry cleaners what cleaning materials to use, they said. He purchased supplies in small numbers, figuring he shouldn’t tie up what little cash he had.

"It just kept working for him because he was so driven," longtime friend Dick Lind said. "He didn’t make a lot of mistakes. He loved the challenge of keeping the business going, making money and not spending all of it."

Always a partnership

But the first 10 years or so were a financial struggle, Claire Whitehouse said. After school, the children would do their homework at the dry cleaner and sometimes ate dinner there too. If they got paid with something as small as a $4 check in the mail, his wife said, she had to leave immediately to deposit it in the bank, locking up the store if she was alone.

"We were a partnership, for better or worse," she said. "For our anniversaries, probably the first 10 years that we were married, we had Kraft macaroni and cheese in a box. We would be able to, that night, each have a whole hot dog."

But Whitehouse rarely complained and his fun side thrived even in later years, when diabetes claimed part of one leg and then part of his other leg.

With Lind, Whitehouse figured out they could still crack each other up over their lifelong habit of "critiquing" each other’s shortcomings — all in fun, like the time Whitehouse, a rug-cleaning-machine veteran, chased a floor polishing machine around a concrete foundation.

"One day at a time," Lind said. "That was his motto. I never had a bad time with him."

Besides his wife and son, Whitehouse is survived by his children Deborah Olsen, of Islip Terrace, Matthew Whitehouse, of Head of the Harbor, and Amy Vitale, of Islip; brother, Richard White House, of Panama City, Florida; and sister, Lois McLaughlin, of Manhattan.

A Mass was celebrated Aug. 13 at Church of St. Mary in East Islip. Cremation was private.