Francis David Brunger was born in Oswego, New York, in 1920. His parents, Charles F. and Katherine Brunger, had both emigrated from England. While living in Wilmington, Illinois, in 1942, he joined the United States Navy, and he served onboard the destroyer USS Farenholt in the Pacific Theater during the Second World War. In 1944, he received further training at the West Coast Sound School, and afterward was transferred to the destroyer USS Rooks, also stationed in the Pacific. After the war, he lived in Syracuse, New York, where he was a telephone repairman for AT&T. He died on September 30, 2004.
Francis and his wife, Alice Louise Harrington, married in the spring of 1944 and had three children: Francis David Brunger, Jr. ("David"), Edward, and Lee. Alice Harrington Brunger graduated from the Syracuse Memorial Hospital School of Nursing in 1942 and was a nurse for most of her life. She died on May 5, 2005.
From the guide to the Brunger papers, 1941-1949, 1942-1945, (William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan)
