F. R. Wallace Jr., 91, former Chesterfield mayor

Frank Richard "Cappy" Wallace Jr., 91, a former Chesterfield Township mayor who championed farmland preservation, died Sunday at the Quadrangle, a senior care community in Haverford.

Mr. Wallace, mayor of the small, rural Burlington County community from 1975 to 1981, was at the forefront of efforts to block development.

In an interview with The Inquirer in 1985, Mr. Wallace recalled how residents had enlisted agencies, including the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, in their effort to block one developer's home-building project on 500 acres of farmland.

"We loaded buses and went down to every meeting of the DVRPC. . . . Finally, the developer gave in," he said.

In the late 1980s, Mr. Wallace also participated in a state farmland preservation program by permanently deed-restricting Brookdale Farm, a roughly 300-acre property that had been in his family for eight generations, since 1677. The deed limited the land to agricultural use.

"Open space was one of his passions," said Elise Carr, one of his daughters. "He worked hard as mayor to keep developers out." New homes are now clustered in a single section of the municipality, which remains mostly rural. Roughly one-third of the township, more than 4,500 acres, has been permanently protected.

Mr. Wallace loved singing and was a member of the Orpheus Club of Philadelphia, a men's singing group founded in 1872. Carr recalled how he would sing and play his guitar every night when she was growing up.

Mr. Wallace was born in Pittsfield, Mass., and grew up in the Germantown section of Philadelphia. He attended Chestnut Hill Academy and earned a bachelor of arts degree in English from Williams College in Massachusetts.

He worked in various positions at the Midvale Steel Co., Van Orsdell Engineering Co. and AMBAC Corp. and was president of Reese Industries in Philadelphia.

He was married to his first wife, Elise "Sewell" Newbold, for 50 years. They settled in Chestnut Hill and raised four children. When Mr. Wallace retired in 1971, the couple moved to Brookdale Farm and hired farmers to cultivate crops on the land.

After his wife died in 1990, Mr. Wallace married Cynthia Wetherill Bright.

Mr. Wallace was a member of the Chesterfield Planning Board, a founder of the Chesterfield Historical Society, a director of the N.J. Forestry Association, and past president of the Philadelphia Society for the Promotion of Agriculture.

He served as chairman of the board of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia from 1984 to 1991 and later was named honorary chairman.

He enjoyed quail and pheasant hunting, bird-watching, and summer vacations at the Pocono Lake Preserve.

Besides his daughter and wife, he is survived by three sons, Anthony, William "Sewell," and Christopher; nine grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday at St. Paul's Church, 22 E. Chestnut Hill Ave., in Philadelphia. Donations in his honor can be made to the Children's Hospital Foundation, Box 827790, Philadelphia 19182-7790.