Beloved School District of Lancaster educator 'Brother' Frank Albrecht dies from ALS (2024)

Editor's note: A previous version of this article had an incorrect age for Frank Albrecht.

“Brother” Frank Albrecht never wanted to be famous or well-known.

“The biggest thing that I would ask people to consider, if they want to thank me at all for my life, is to love everybody unconditionally,” Albrecht said in February. “That means everybody. No exceptions.”

Albrecht died Saturday at the age of 66, 15 months after being diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Beloved by a Lancaster city community he embraced, Albrecht adopted the moniker “brother” in the 1990s, not long after moving to South Ann Street, where he began taking at-risk youth on annual camping trips.

“It is with great sadness I share with you that earlier today, Frank Albrecht passed away after a courageous battle with ALS,” wrote McCaskey High School Principal Justin Reese in a district statement Saturday. “Frank truly loved McCaskey, and our school would not be what it is without his dedication, service, and care for all.”

Reese wrote in the statement that support for students would be available in both guidance suites as well as the Innovation Media Center within the McCaskey High School building. Support staff will also be available in the McCaskey High School 100 wing and classrooms B101 and B123, according to the statement.

The Albrecht family has asked for privacy while planning Frank Albrecht’s memorial service, Reese wrote, but the district will post memorial service information when it is available.

A March 30 retirement celebration for his 33 years at the School District of Lancaster drew hundreds of people including well-wishers from Puerto Rico and Colombia, and city and state officials.

The retirement celebration was an embodiment of the impact he had made first as a teacher and eventually as a facilitator of student support services, diffusing conflict amongst students as he led the district’s mediation program. Firmly rooted in the Mennonite religion, Albrecht preached nonviolence and often collected furniture, food and clothing to give to those in need.

He influenced generation after generation of students, with today’s students telling stories of how Albrecht changed the trajectory of their mother’s life or their father’s life – or even a grandparent’s life.

“I don’t think he’ll leave a legacy at McCaskey,” said McCaskey High School Principal Justin Reese prior to Albrecht’s death. “I think every student that came through McCaskey is his legacy.”

Albrecht, who had previously led an active lifestyle, was diagnosed with ALS in May 2023. It was shortly after his wife, Elizabeth Soto Albrecht noticed a limp on his right side, and called in the help of their eldest daughter Yentli Soto Albrecht. Yentli Soto Albrecht, 30, is in her sixth year of a medical doctorate program at the University of Pennsylvania.

The news that Albrecht had ALS – the same disease that his sister Judy Albrecht-Bunting died of in 2019 – devastated his wife of 32 years and their two daughters.

“It totally changed our lives,” Elizabeth Soto Albrecht said in an interview with LNP | LancasterOnline earlier this year.

Albrecht’s legacy

Albrecht started the peer mediation program in 1990 after witnessing one student fatally stab another at McCaskey High School.

A junior at McCaskey High School and peer mediator in the program, Zoe Patterson, spoke to the crowd gathered at Albrecht’s retirement celebration March 30.

As she remembered the positive impact Albrecht had on her life, Patterson was overcome by tears. Several attendees ran up to the podium with a handful of tissues.

“Nothing can stop him from doing anything he pursued,” Patterson said of Albrecht.

During the peer mediation program orientation in August 2023, Patterson said the always optimistic and exuberant Albrecht grew serious for a moment to tell the team he had been diagnosed with ALS. Moments later, she said, he did more push-ups than she could count to show the disease hadn’t yet taken away his abilities.

But ALS spread quickly in Albrecht. Reese had guessed that Albrecht’s well-intentioned drive to work full-time at McCaskey in the fall had made the onset of the disease more rapid. Albrecht’s goal had been to live and work through the end of the 2023-24 school year and then, over the summer, go on a road trip across the country to visit friends and family.

“Frank, I know that working with the students gives you a lot of life but at the same time it’s killing you,” Reese told Albrecht.

Half of people with ALS die within 14 to 18 months of diagnosis, according to the Mayo Clinic. Some live 10 years or longer.

Students watched as Albrecht’s health declined – as he moved from daily push-ups to a walker then a cane and finally a wheelchair within the first six months of his diagnosis. In January Albrecht started working half days. By April, he couldn’t work anymore and the ever-present smiling face encouraging students to hurry into school on time each morning was gone from McCaskey.

“As hard as this was towitness as a student, it was powerful to see him stay positive and give it his all every day,” Patterson said.

Patterson and her colleagues circulated a petition to have the McCaskey High School stadium named after Albrecht. They had trouble envisioning a world without their beloved mentor. District spokesperson Adam Aurand said SDL hasn’t received that petition but are aware of a desire by some community members to name facilities for Albrecht.

“Brother Albrecht’s legacy is sprinkled in everyone here,” said Patterson said in an interview with LNP | LancasterOnline in February. “In a way, we have to channel our inner Brother Albrecht.”

The moniker “Brother” was one Albrecht earned before Patterson was born. In the 1990s, not long after he moved to South Ann Street, he began taking at-risk youth on annual camping trips where the boys in attendance would colloquially call each other and Albrecht “Brother.” The name stuck, especially because he began referring to everyone he met as brother and sister.

‘If we could map out thecity, I suspect there would be very few blocks that were not impacted by you,” said Lancaster city Mayor Danene Sorace at Albrecht’s retirement party in March.

A man of faith

Though Albrecht centered most of his life’s impact on Lancaster city and the surrounding Lancaster county area from his city homes on South Ann and Chesapeake streets, Albrecht’s impact extends beyond the United States.

Albrecht spent nearly a decade of his life in Bogota, the capital of Colombia, where he first learned Spanish – a handy skill for working with the large Spanish-speaking population at SDL – and introduced the peer mediation program he’d created at McCaskey to schools in the area.

“Where you worked, you brought refreshment to the soul and refreshment to the body and refreshment to the mind,” said a translator speaking for a Colombian church leader who worked with Albrecht during his time there.

It was the desire to travel, among others, that first drew him to wife Elizabeth Soto Albrecht, who, as a native Puerto Rican and theologian, wanted to return to Latin America after moving to Lancaster city to work for the Mennonite Central Committee, a relief service and peace agency based in Akron.

“Frank Albrecht does this because he is a Christian man,” Elizabeth Soto Albrecht said of her husband’s desire to help others. ”Everything he does is in a sense of serving, coming from his faith.”

The couple’s youngest daughter, Sara Albrecht Soto, 28, was born during their first trip to Colombia in the early 1990’s. Both daughters remember learning from their parents’ devotion to the community during their early years there and back in Lancaster.

“The thing I really value about my parents is how much they showed us how important it is to give to your community,” Yentli Soto Albrecht said.

Albrecht, who was born in Michigan, is survived by his wife Elizabeth Soto Albrecht and two daughters Yentli Soto Albrecht and Sara Albrecht Soto. He’s also survived by his brother Chuck Albrecht and sister Linda Albrecht. He was preceded in death by sister Judy Albrecht-Bunting.

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