Obit: Frank, Alice (1864 - 1942)

Contact: Crystal Wendt
Email: crystal@wiclarkcountyhistory.org  

Surnames: Frank, Bowers, Tuttle, Reynolds, Tousley, Longenecker

----Sources: The Clark County Press (Neillsville, Clark County, Wis.) 9 April 1942

Frank, Alice (15 Jan. 1864 - 6 April 1942)

Mrs. Leonard Frank died at 2:45 a.m. April 6, 1942, at the Frank homestead in the town of Weston after a long illness with cancer and complications.

Funeral services will be held today, April 9, at the Schiller funeral home, the Rev. G. W. Longenecker officiating. Interment will take place in the Neillsville Cemetery.

Born in Waterloo, Wis., January, 15, 1864, Mrs. Frank came to Clark County at the age of 14 to make her home with her grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Tousley, who lived west of this city in Pine Valley. Her maiden name was Alice Bowers.

She married to Leonard Frank, whose parents lived near the farm of her grandparents, on June 8, 1880.

Mr. and Mrs. Frank were the parents of four children: (Irene) Mrs. S. R. Tuttle, Modesto, Calif.; Loren Frank and (Bernice) Mrs. P. S. Reynolds, at home, and Francis Frank, San Jose, Calif.

In 1882, Mr. and Mrs. Frank started to develop a farm of their own on wild land in Section 28, town of Weston, where they have made their home continuously, except for a few years when they lived in Neillsville, Wis. Those first years of pioneer farming were particularly hard for the young woman who had spent the first fourteen years of her life in a comparatively well settled community. Their nearest neighbors for a time in the new home were a tribe of 70 or 80 Winnebago Indians, who settled temporarily on the Ridge near their home.

The Frank worked together, happily and harmoniously, throughout the years. Mr. Frank worked in lumber camps, cleared land and erected buildings while his wife cheerfully performed the duties which fell to her as a homemaker. In addition to her household duties, she found time, year after year, to be neighborly and to plant and care for a large flower garden, often working "overtime" by the dim light of a lantern, among her flowers. Her love for the beautiful also is evident in the settling selected for the home, places as it is in an elevated location, well back from the highway, and overlooking virgin timer in almost every direction.

For many years, Mrs. Frank represented her community as a correspondent for the Clark County Press.

Surviving are her children, six grandchildren, four great-grandchildren, and one great-great-grandchild.