Frances Shane Fendler

Frances Shane Fendler, 70, died on Aug. 22, 2024, in Medford, Ore., of ovarian cancer.

Frances was born on Sept. 18, 1953, and grew up in Blytheville the daughter of Oscar Fendler, a lawyer respected throughout Arkansas legal circles and elsewhere, and his wife, Patricia Fendler, a CPA. Frances got her law degree in 1982 from the UA Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law. She was editor-­in-chief of the law school’s law review, graduated at the top of her class, and earned the highest score on the July 1982 Arkansas bar exam. She clerked for two years for the late and celebrated Hon. Richard S. Arnold, United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. She later moved to Washington, D.C., and practiced law with a distinguished firm, Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering (now WilmerHale).

In 1986, Frances returned to Little Rock and joined the Bowen faculty. During her 31 years as a law professor, Frances taught many different courses, including Business Associations and Securities Regulation. Her favorite course was Drafting Contracts, where she worked intensively with a small number of students to improve their writing and to help them think about clients who needed practical, real-world solutions to common business and personal problems that a lawyer could help them with. Students liked it, too, because it did not involve learning any law (or at least not very much) and was a welcome break from the usual law school grind. Also, during her career in academia, Frances published several scholarly articles and two books about law. She was a member of the American Bar Association, the Arkansas Bar Association, the Pulaski County Bar Association, and the Bar of the District of Columbia. She served as a member of the Arkansas Bar Association’s House of Delegates and as a member of its Board of Governors, and she was a Fellow of the Arkansas Bar Foundation.

Frances did not have children, but she doted on the many rescue dogs with whom, over the years, she shared her life. She was lucky enough to have had three heart dogs, Ellie (a blue heeler mix), Honey Bear (a chihuahua mix), and Bug (a chihuahua). All of her dogs’ ashes will be buried alongside Frances. In addition to the dogs she adopted, over the years Frances fostered many dogs for local animal rescue organizations and worked to find them their forever homes. Several of the dogs she acquired for herself were failed fosters.

Frances deeply loved her parents. She was especially close to her father. Oscar’s family was Jewish, and his relatives in Poland were murdered by the Nazis in World War II. Oscar and Frances had read an article in the National Geographic that said that the Polish government was very hostile to and mistreated the few remaining Jews in that country. In 1988, the two of them went to Europe to search for whatever they could find about Oscar’s relatives who had lived in Krakow, Poland.

It was this trip to Poland with her father that inspired Frances to officially become a Jew. While Frances’ father was Jewish, her mother was a Christian. Neither parent was interested in religious observance. Her mother sent Frances to the Methodist church Sunday School during her childhood, so that Frances would have a basic understanding of conventional religious teachings. But Frances was not allowed to be baptized until she was old enough to decide whether to ally herself with Christianity, Judaism, or no religion at all. Frances decided to live without any religious affiliation. But when in Poland she saw the remaining evidence of the atrocities committed by the Nazis on the entire Jewish population of Poland during World War II. Thinking of her own relatives, who had been innocent victims of this barbarism, slaughtered in Auschwitz, Frances embraced her Jewish heritage, formally converted to Judaism, and joined Congregation B’nai Israel in Little Rock.

Frances was predeceased by her parents; her paternal grandparents, Alfred and Ray Fendler of Manila; her maternal grandparents, Cecil and Polly Shane of Blytheville; and her half-brother (her mother’s son by a previous marriage) Tilden P. (“Chip”) Wright Ill of Fayetteville. She is survived by her niece, Robyn Wright Green (Brian) of Philadelphia, Penn.; her nephew, Jeff Wright of St. Helena, California; three great-nephews, Jordan Wright, Austin Wright, and Aidan Green; and a great-niece, Alexa Wright. Frances also leaves behind two former husbands, but dear friends, Richard Lee Hopper and Jeff Rosenzweig, along with many other friends whom she cherished and enjoyed during her lifetime.

Frances was a member of Congregation B’nai Israel in Little Rock. Her memorial service and reception will be held there on Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, at 1 p.m. Her ashes will be buried, privately, in the Elmwood Cemetery in Blytheville, next to her parents and her maternal grandparents. If you wish to make a contribution in her memory, please make it to Friends of the Little Rock Animal Village or other local animal rescue organizations, to the Arkansas Access to Justice Foundation, or to a charity of your choice.