Frank Drown is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

 and former missionary

Missionary

A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...

. He and his wife Marie were missionaries with Gospel Missionary Union and worked for 37 years with the Jivaro Indians of eastern Ecuador

Ecuador

Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...

, who were known for their head shrinking.

The Drowns worked alongside missionary Roger Youderian

Roger Youderian

Roger Youderian was an Armenian-American evangelical Christian missionary to Ecuador who, along with four others, was killed while attempting to evangelize the Huaorani people through efforts known as Operation Auca....

 and his family for three years in the 1950s. They had also been instrumental in directing them to the mission field. In 1955, Roger joined with four other missionaries in Operation Auca

Operation Auca

Operation Auca was an attempt by five Evangelical Christian missionaries from the United States to bring the gospel to the Huaorani people of the rainforest of Ecuador...

, an effort to reach the Huaorani

Huaorani

The Huaorani, Waorani or Waodani, also known as the Waos, are native Amerindians from the Amazonian Region of Ecuador who have marked differences from other ethnic groups from Ecuador. The alternate name Auca is a pejorative exonym used by the neighboring Quechua Indians, and commonly adopted by...

, another Indian tribe in the area. When the five men turned up missing, Drown led the ground search party into Huaorani territory to locate the men. They discovered four of the bodies, including Roger's and buried the men and a mass grave

Mass grave

A mass grave is a grave containing multiple number of human corpses, which may or may not be identified prior to burial. There is no strict definition of the minimum number of bodies required to constitute a mass grave, although the United Nations defines a mass grave as a burial site which...

. Drown led a quick funeral service at the gravesite before a severe tropical storm blew in. Roger's wife Barbara continued to work with the Drowns for many years after Roger's death.

In 1959, after 15 years living in Ecuador, and three years after his fellow missionary had been killed, the Drowns were asked to write a book about their lives as missionaries. After the success Elisabeth Elliot's best-seller Through Gates of Splendor

Through Gates of Splendor

Through Gates of Splendor is a 1957 best selling book written by Elisabeth Elliot. The book tells the story of Operation Auca, an attempt by five American missionaries - Jim Elliot , Pete Fleming, Ed McCully, Nate Saint, and Roger Youderian - to reach the Huaorani tribe of eastern Ecuador. All five...

, the publishers believed such a book would be in demand. And so the Drown's co-authored a book which became the memoirs. It is called Mission to the Headhunters.

Drown was interviewed for the 2004

2004 in film

The year 2004 in film involved some significant events. Major releases of sequels took place. It included blockbuster films like Shrek 2, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, The Passion of the Christ, Meet the Fockers, Blade: Trinity, Spider-Man 2, Alien vs. Predator, Kill Bill Vol...

 documentary Beyond the Gates of Splendor

Beyond the Gates of Splendor

Beyond the Gates of Splendor is a feature-length documentary film that was released in 2004. It chronicles the events leading up to and following Operation Auca, an attempt to contact the Huaorani tribe of Ecuador in which five American missionaries were killed...

where he described in detail what happened during the search party's expedition.

The Drown's son Ross became a missionary pilot and is now in business. He married Kathy Saint, the daughter of Nate Saint

Nate Saint

Nathanael "Nate" Saint was an evangelical Christian missionary pilot to Ecuador who, along with four others, was killed while attempting to evangelize the Waodani people through efforts known as Operation Auca....

 who was also killed during Operation Auca. Their daughter Laura is also a missionary. She serves in Guayaquil

Guayaquil

Guayaquil , officially Santiago de Guayaquil , is the largest and the most populous city in Ecuador,with about 2.3 million inhabitants in the city and nearly 3.1 million in the metropolitan area, as well as that nation's main port...

, the largest city in the nation her parents formerly served at. She lives with her husband, Dave Erdel.

Today the Drowns live near Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...

.