Читать книгу Memoirs of Milwaukee County, Volume 2 - Josiah Seymour Currey - Страница 22

Dr. Louis Frederick Frank, son of Friedrich August Frank and Anna Veronika (Kerler) Frank was born in Milwaukee, April 15, 1857. His father, Friedrich August Frank, son of the Lutheran pastor, Johann Heinrich Frank, of Dietlingen in Baden, Germany, came to the United States in 1850 and together with other relatives settled on a farm on the Tittabawassee river near Saginaw, Michigan. A merchant by training and experience and having been driven from Germany by the intolerable attitude of the Prussian government which led many to seek domiciles in other countries as the result of the collapse of the revolutionary agitation of 1848, he soon cast about for a suitable position, choosing Milwaukee for his future home. Upon the dissolution of the dry goods firm of Goll & Stern in 1852, he became associated with Julius Goll, entering as junior partner into the firm henceforth to be known as Goll & Frank, incorporated in 1855, which since has enjoyed a steady and prosperous growth.

Louis Frederick Frank received his early training at the parochial school of the present Grace Lutheran church, known at that time as Muehlhaeuser's after the Rev. Johannes Muehlhaeuser, previously pastor. H. O. R. Siefert, later superintendent of Milwaukee's public schools, became one of his instructors, and he frequently remarked in later life that while the training might have been lacking in variety as compared with the demands of modern curricula, the thoroughness with which the elements of education were instilled left nothing to be desired. He next attended the Lutheran high school, formerly connected with the present Trinity church, and later pursued his studies at Markham's Academy, where he was graduated in 1875.

Having decided upon the study of medicine as his future profession, he spent two years at the University of Michigan, completing the required course at the College of Medicine of the University of the City of New York, where he received his degree of M. D. In 1878. In order to prepare himself more fully for his future calling, he determined to devote another year of study at the University of Wuerzburg, Germany, where he obtained his degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1879. Dr. Frank began the practice of medicine in Milwaukee in 1880 by becoming for a time assistant to Dr. Nicholas Senn, who was later made surgeon-general of the Illinois National Guard during the Spanish-American war.

In 1882 Dr. Frank married Emily Inbusch, daughter of the late John D. Inbusch, by which marriage there were three children, Edwin, who married Marie Meinecke, daughter of the late Ferdinand Meinecke of Milwaukee; Elsa J. and Emily J. Frank. He suffered the loss of his wife in 1890 and later decided to leave for Europe in order to prepare himself for the specialty of dermatology, studying under Unna in Hamburg, Kaposi in Vienna and Foumier in Paris. After a year's absence he returned and began to follow the chosen specialty with greatest interest, introducing to Milwaukee the use of the X-ray and the Finsen ultra violet ray lamp for the treatment of malignant skin diseases.

In May, 1888, members of the Bartlett Clinical Club, principally at the instigation of Drs. Horace M. Brown, A. B. Farnham and Samuel W. French organized the present Emergency Hospital, of which Dr. Frank was elected president.

In 1892 Dr. Frank's second marriage to Ella E. Schandein, daughter of the late Emil Schandein, took place. There were two children: Armin C, who married Elsie Espy, daughter of Carl Espy of Savannah, Georgia; and Louise F., who married Walter S. Ott, son of Emil H. Ott of Milwaukee.

Dr. Frank was one of the charter members of the Clinical Club, later changed to Bartlett Clinical Club, thereafter to the Milwaukee Medical Society, now known as the Milwaukee Academy of Medicine. Of this organization he was president in 1894, when the American Medical Association convened in Milwaukee. He was a member of the Milwaukee County Medical Society, the Wisconsin Medical Society and the American Medical Society, also a member of the "Verein Deutscher Aerzte," the object of which was the promotion of professional interests and to which only physicians with German diploma (Austria, Russia and Switzerland included) were eligible. In the founding of the Wisconsin College of Physicians and Surgeons, Dr. Frank was likewise actively interested and 'belonged to the initial teaching staff of that institution. In 1900 he was one of the delegates to the Pan-American Medical Congress in Havana.

As a diversion from the more serious character of his work. Dr. Frank always took great interest in the development of the musical life and progress of the city and being himself an able performer on various instruments, including the pipe-organ, for which he had a particular fondness, he frequently arranged musical evenings in his home with professional and able amateur musicians, and these evenings spent in performing the works of the masters were a source of constant delight and recreation to him.

He was also actively interested in various musical organizations of the city, having been one of the organizers of the A Capella Choir and for several years president of the Milwaukee Musical Society, during which time the society — in 1900 — celebrated its semi-centennial by a series of splendid concerts, for which famous artists had been engaged. One of these evenings was made particularly memorable by the presence and speech of Carl Schurz, which proved to be his last visit to Wisconsin, the scene of his earliest activities in America. Dr. Frank was also one of the founders of the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music, which institution has developed into one of the leading music schools in the middle west and of which he was president at the time of his death.

After a prolonged trip to Europe with his family in 1907-08, he gradually limited his practice in order to devote more time to various literary pursuits. Early Wisconsin history greatly interested him and having come perchance into possession of a number of family letters describing the pioneer days of his forefathers, he published these in a pretentious volume entitled "Pionier-Jahre der Familien Frank-Kerler." The successful completion of this work led him to undertake the writing of the "History of the Medical Profession of Milwaukee," his last work of this kind and for which he received many encouraging comments.

He was an ardent lover of nature. His walks and rambles through the countryside, mostly Sunday mornings, gave him many silent hours for thought and contemplation. The result of these being his collection of poems of various characters gathered together in a small volume entitled "Lebenserinnerungen eines Arztes," a true reflection of the Joy and exaltation derived from the great outdoors.

Dr. Frank died after a lingering illness on May 12, 1918, and one of his many friends who paid him the last tribute may be quoted as follows: "His creed was his belief in the duty of each man to make life better worth living for others and with such a Bible for his guidance and with such a creed he passed his life among us, an inspiration and example to all who knew him. His wit, his ability in his profession, his skill in the production of things that were beautiful, marked him as a man above the common herd and in the immortality he has left behind, is as much alive today, as when he first came among us and will so remain to those who knew him, so long as for them memory shall last!"