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Friends of the late Dean Franklin Wagenbach have created a memorial for him that sits in front of Fred’s Restaurant, honoring Dean for the man that he was. He had a strong desire to connect with the Franklin community that he loved, and the placement of the memorial highlights how he strengthened that community connection through more than 40 years of faithful patronage at Fred’s.

“We thought it’d be appropriate to put a bench in front of the table he sat at three or four times a day,” Mark Kitchen said. “There’s only one Dean.”

The memorial bench features a name plate that reads, “In memory of our dear friend, Dean Franklin Wagenbach” followed by the years of his birth and passing, 1936-2025, and the phrase, “Gone Fishing,” reflecting his great love of angling.

As noted in his obituary, Wagenbach, of Franklin and Como, North Carolina, passed away on Jan. 7 after a brief illness. He was 88. 

Clyde Parker, one of the individuals who helped create the memorial bench, had been friends with Wagenbach since the late 1940s.

“We pretty well grew up together,” Parker said.

Parker’s family lived on the Sol Rawls dairy farm, and Parker noted that Wagenbach lived in town.

“He was always visiting out there with us on the farm with me and my brothers,” Parker said.

Parker noted that while Wagenbach was born in Wisconsin, he moved to Franklin when he was 2 or 3 years old, along with his father and mother and three brothers.

“His father was a noted dairy barn builder in Wisconsin,” Parker said, referencing Martin Otto Wagenbach. “(Martin) came here to build a barn, and then he never went back to Wisconsin because everybody else around here wanted him to build a barn for them too. So the family stayed here and never went back to Wisconsin.”

Parker said Dean left the area when he joined the U.S. Army, and then he spent some of his post-military years living in New York. 

Parker estimated that it was in the late 1960s or early 1970s that Dean decided to come back south to Franklin and largely stayed in the area from that point forward, getting involved with real estate.

“He’d buy houses and repurpose a house and resell it and this kind of thing,” Parker said. “He was kind of in the building trade, I guess you might call it, a noted carpenter and cabinet builder and that type of thing.”

Wagenbach’s obituary noted that he purchased Cedar Hill Farm in Como, North Carolina, and stated, “A man of many talents and legendary stories, Dean was a skilled carpenter, North Carolina farmer, Chowan Milling Company salesman, collector of yard sale oddities, Shag Club dancer, successful game hunter, N.C. chapter Pheasant Plucker and a right good fisherman who took the location of his secret fishing holes to the grave.”

Wagenbach also had a zeal for history and historical knowledge.

His obituary highlighted his dearest loves as being his daughter, Lisa Ann Wagenbach, and the people of Franklin. 

The place he most regularly interacted with the people of Franklin was Fred’s. 

Parker estimated that Wagenbach’s regular patronage of Fred’s Restaurant took place over the last 40 to 45 years.

“He’d come in for breakfast just about every morning,” Parker said.

David Rabil, of Fred’s Restaurant, remembered it well.

“He was there every day,” Rabil said. “Usually he was one of the first people to come in. He would come in with his own cup of coffee to start with, and then he’d get our coffee. But he would pick up a cup of coffee and take it down to Natalie at the barber shop.

“She always has a little candy dish there,” Rabil continued. “He’d pick up a couple pieces of candy, bring it back to the waitresses. He would bring the girls donuts and cookies and cakes every now and then as well.” 

Rabil noted that Wagenbach would start the day at the round table sitting right next to the window, on the other side of which the memorial bench now sits outside the building. Then Dean would table hop, spending time table to table with many different people.

“He knew everybody,” Rabil said. “If he didn’t know them when they came in, he knew them before they left.”

Parker said, “He was a very well-known man throughout this whole area because of his friendliness.”

After enjoying breakfast at Fred’s, Wagenbach would usually go home and then come back around lunch time, Parker said.

“And then he would come also during the late afternoon/early evening,” Parker said. “He was just about as regular as anybody could be in patronizing Fred’s.”

Rabil said Wagenbach and his whole family have been really close with the Rabil family.

“He’s not a member of our family, but he did come to our last family reunion in 2014,” Rabil said. “He’s a very good friend of a cousin of ours who lives in Virginia Beach, so we consider him family.”

Kitchen said Parker and himself took up money to create the bench in Wagenbach’s honor.

“We got a lot of help from Carlton Cutchin at Ace Hardware and Billy Smith of Smith Jewelers as far as helping us with the project,” Kitchen said.

Wagenbach’s obituary concludes by stating, “In lieu of flowers, please consider carrying on Deano’s legacy by supporting the local Franklin community, which includes dining at Fred’s and bringing server Krystal candy, delivering coffee to Natalie at Mabel’s Barber Shop, joining the Franklin Shag Club because Helen needs a new dance partner and making a donation to Southampton Agriculture and Forestry Museum in Courtland, Virginia.”