The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 103: A Girl Named Frank

Episode Date: June 26, 2018

When it came to getting exactly what she wanted - Frank could be very persuasive.  

This is the way I heard it. When Robert and Martha Crawford of Mobile, Alabama, learned they were pregnant way back in 1838, they vowed to name their first child after a family friend, Brigadier General Frank Armstrong. Well, their first child turned out to be a girl, but that didn't dissuade the parents from making good on their promise. And so, like a boy named Sue, a girl named Frank entered the world with a confusing moniker, guaranteed to trigger a lifetime of cocked heads and double-takes. But, unlike the hero and the Johnny Cash song, the girl named Frank grew into a beautiful woman,

utterly devoted to two great passions, the Confederate States and the Methodist Church. Of the two, it's difficult to know which consume the greater amount of her loyalty, but it's safe to say that her affection for both left little time for romance, which is perhaps why the girl named Frank agreed to marry her wealthy, cousin, 43 years her senior. Let me be clear about something right up front. I'm not suggesting that Frank married her cousin for his money. Not at all. Truth is, she signed a pre-up, so she knew going in she'd inherit just a tiny portion of his estate. I'm just saying,

it's hard to imagine that the attraction was mutual. The groom was old enough to be her grandfather. He already had 13 children with his first wife, a woman named Sophie, who also happened to be a first cousin. Obviously, when Sophie died, the old man had taken one look at Frank and resolved to take another dip in the family gene pool. But does that mean the girl named Frank wasn't truly in love with her elderly cousin? Of course not. It's just that, well, the old man's legendary lack of social graces had ripened with age. had no education, atrocious grammar, and a commitment to profanity entirely inconsistent with his station in life. He was ruthless in business, stingy with his money, and a firm believer in the

occult. In short, he was kind of a brute. So you have to wonder, right? I mean, what was a southern bell like Frank doing with an old Yankee? Why would a devout Methodist marry a man who consulted with mediums and clairvoyance. Why would a woman so devoted to the Southern cause marry a close personal friend of Abraham Lincoln? It's true. Frank's husband had provided the Union Army with money and warships that hasten the annihilation of her beloved Confederacy, and Frank knew it. Maybe their unlikely attraction had something to do with her longtime friend, the right Reverend Holland, Tyree, and his personal quest to build a university in the war-torn South. Again, I want to be careful here.

I'm not saying that Frank married her wealthy cousin in the hopes of persuading him to underwrite a project spearheaded by the Methodist Church. No, not at all. Besides, the old man never contributed to charity. Never. Indeed, Frank knew full well that her husband. husband reserved his greatest contempt for clergymen who came to his estate on Staten Island begging for donations. But nevertheless, the bishop arrived in New York had in hand. A check

was written shortly thereafter. Two checks, in fact, each made out to the right Reverend Holland Tyree, each in the amount of $500,000, the modern day equivalent of $20 million, each signed by the wealthy husband of a girl named Frank. I'm just saying, seems like somebody must have done something incredibly persuasive to get the old man to loosen his grip on the family fortune. And I'm guessing it wasn't the bishop, because Bishop Tyree was, among other things, a slave owner, a very proud slave owner who published in 1859 a charming little manifesto called Duties of Christian Masters, where he opined that slavery was, quote, God's punishment, and that he was bound by his position in the church to ensure the institution continued. Was this the kind of man likely to inspire a charitable donation from a wealthy Yankee who supported Lincoln's army? Hardly. So the question remains, why the sudden burst of philanthropy to such an unlikely beneficiary?

According to one biographer, it was a legacy thing. The old man wanted to be remembered for something more than his vast collection of steamboats and railroads. According to another, it was a business decision. Doing something magnanimous in the wake of the Civil War would show he bore Southerners no ill-will. Southerners were, after all, still his customers. That makes more sense, but personally, I'm stuck on the undeniable fact that the right reverend would have never been granted an audience with the richest man in America, but for the gentle insistence of a girl named friend. Frank. Obviously, the precise nature of this insistence is really none of my business, and

far be it for me to imply or suggest that the most prestigious university in the South was built because an old man with certain connubial desires realized a generous donation to his wife's beloved church would keep his blushing bride, you know, blushing. I'm just saying the notoriously tight-fisted mogul everyone called the Commodore, did something very late in life that was profoundly unexpected and deeply out of character. He wrote two enormous checks to a pious slave-owning clergyman culminating in the largest gift in the history of educational philanthropy. The result? A university in Tennessee that still bears his name. The same name that America, America's first tycoon gave to a girl named Frank.

In return for whatever it was, she gave to him, Vanderbilt. Anyway, that's the way I heard it. When you manage procurement for multiple facilities, every order matters. But when it's for a hospital system, they matter even more. Granger gets it and knows there's no time for managing multiple suppliers and no room for shipping delays. That's why Granger offers me. millions of products in fast dependable delivery so you can keep your facility stocked safe and running smoothly.

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