I never had the pleasure of meeting my paternal grandfather, Franklin Walter Locke; he died a year and a half before I came into the world. From my father I got the impression he was authoritarian in nature. My dad recalled a time in his youth when he came to the dinner table with his hair uncombed; his father pulled the tablecloth from under the place settings, allowing everyone's dinner to fall to the floor, which left an indelible impression on my dad.
Many years after my grandmother, Esther Slane Bryant Locke passed away, I received a leather-bound photograph album that Grandpa Frank had assembled from his time in the U.S. Navy during World War I. It contained these old photographs and post cards from his time at sea, plus a few additions later added when he returned home to his young family, his wife and my grandmother, and a young son, my dad, John Anthony Locke. From the yellowed old photos and from reading what I could find out about him in Ancestry.com, I was able to learn the following: His father, Frank H. Locke hailed from New York City where he worked as a butcher. After becoming a widower, he moved to Missoula, Montana. By the time he was five, he was an "inmate" at the Sacred Heart Academy in Hell Gate, Missoula. By the age of 14, he was living with his uncle John E. Gannon, his mother's brother and his wife, Aunt Nellie in Missoula.
He registered for the draft in 1917 in Seattle, Washington, seeing service until the war's end. During his time in the US Navy, his service took him to the Far East including Shanghai, Hong Kong, Manila, Tokyo and Yokohama, as well as the French Norman towns of Brest, Nantes and Bordeaux. After the war ended, he served for a time at the naval shipyard in Philadelphia before being discharged.
He returned to his young family, settling in Oakland, California. The Federal Census of 1930 has him living at 45 Eighth Avenue where he set up shop as a manufacturer of paints and varnish. He pioneered the development of different varnish products one of which he named Locke's Stop-O-Stain. He had a good sense of chemistry and had an inventor's mind. For a time, I had a small collection of his beakers and test tubes, which were lost in the move to California. He was a risk-taker: he invented an electronic ray machine that was supposed to have curative powers but was never commercially successful. He also invested in oil exploration in Oregon which also proved unsuccessful.
He died in Portland, Oregon on March 31, 1940, and was buried at River View Cemetery. As a kid I used to visit his grave every year on Memorial Day.
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I never met my paternal grandfather, Franklin Walter Locke (pictured on the bottom right) who died in March 1941 two years before I was born. His father, Frank H. Locke hailed from New York City where he worked as a butcher.
After his father became a widower, he moved to Missoula, Montana. For some unknown reason, my grandfather became an orphan at the age of five, and became an "inmate" at the Sacred Heart Academy in Hell Gate, Missoula. By the age of 14, he was living with his uncle John E. Gannon, his mother's brother and his wife, Aunt Nellie in Missoula, Montana.
The others in the photo taken on May 3, 1898 are (top row, L-R), Marion Locke, his sister; his Aunt Ella and Dolores Stephens (perhaps a friend of the family). The bottom row is a little more confusing; the gentleman with the mustache is Tony Munch, who may at some point have become his caretaker (or even stepfather); the others are his cousin Isadore and lastly Frank.
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Tags: Franklin Walter Locke Family Growing Up Sacred Heart Academy Hell Gate Missoula Tony Munch Marion Locke Montana History
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When Ann Robin Locke was born in 1922 in Portland, Oregon, her father, Franklin, was 27, and her mother, Esther, was 32. She had three brothers and one sister. She died as a teenager on February 24, 1938, in her hometown, and was buried there.
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