{"id":142482,"date":"2021-10-29T12:21:29","date_gmt":"2021-10-29T16:21:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=142482"},"modified":"2021-10-29T14:48:09","modified_gmt":"2021-10-29T18:48:09","slug":"fran-k-frank-mystery-answered-by-frank-himself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2021\/10\/29\/fran-k-frank-mystery-answered-by-frank-himself\/","title":{"rendered":"Fran K.? Frank? Signature mystery answered…by Frank himself"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cYes, that\u2019s my name,\u201d said the man on the other end of the phone. Pause. \u201cBut I didn\u2019t write it.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A couple of weeks ago, we published a story chronicling our efforts to determine the full name<\/a> of a fragment of a signature \u2014 Fran K.? Frank? \u2014 found last summer when workers replaced old slate chalkboards with new ones in a campus building. The building was historic Hathorn Hall, and the pencil signature was on historic wallpaper. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So we went deep into Bates history, deciphering the date as “May 16 \u2014 1892,\u201d and poured efforts into finding a match \u2014 student, professors, anyone \u2014 to a \u201cFran K.\u201d or \u201cFrank\u201d from the late 1800s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
This is the partial signature uncovered during classroom renovations in Hathorn Hall. (Photograph by Paul Farnsworth)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Some folks joined the search, like Madison Fox ’19. “Thanks for this fun scavenger hunt!” Fox wrote in an email. Fox found an entry in the 1915 General Catalogue of Bates College<\/em><\/a> for Mary Ruth Sweetser Quincy, Class of 1912, the daughter of Francis K. and Jennie Clement Sweetser.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Searching Google, Fox found that \u201cFrancis K. Sweetser” is buried at the Lindenwood Cemetery in Stoneham, Mass. Could the Bates signature be in memory or honor of Francis Sweetser by his Bates daughter? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s great sleuthing. But right across the campus in Facility Services, there was no mystery about the name. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After posting the image and story on Facebook<\/a>, Facility Services staff member Adam Wright offered a 20th century solution. The name is \u201cFrank Ford,\u201d he posted on Facebook. \u201cI believe he was a carpenter at the college for some time. The date might be May 16\u201318, \u201892. Seen it in other places around campus.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
This is the partial signature and date uncovered during classroom renovations in Hathorn Hall. We thought it was a name from 1892, but nope. (Photograph by Paul Farnsworth)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Reoriented to current times, we looked in our trusty Bates directory and, sure enough, there’s Bates retiree Frank Ford, age 88, who lives over on Gammon Avenue in Auburn. We gave him a call and, after some appropriate gatekeeping by his daughter (after all, we were asking about someone\u2019s signature), Frank came on the line.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMr. Ford,\u201d I said, \u201cwe found what we think is a signature of your name under a blackboard in Hathorn Hall.” Ford said it was his name, but that he didn\u2019t write it. \u201cWell, who did?\u201d I asked. \u201cCliff Dow and Ray Fortier,\u201d Ford replied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dow and Fortier were Bates carpenters, “very good carpenters,\u201d explained Ford, who also liked “to horse around.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the tradespeople at the Cutten Maintenance Center, the Frank Ford name is well known, as is Frank himself, recalled fondly by the long-timers there. The signature has been found by staff all over campus, whether behind sheetrock here and there or hidden on a wardrobe in Rand Hall, presumably custom-built by Dow and Fortier decades ago. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, “Frank Ford” seems to be a Bates version of “Kilroy Was Here,” the graffiti meme popular during World War II.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Engraving
Engraving of Kilroy on the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. (Photograph by Luis Rubio from Alexandria, Va.,CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Ford was a jack of all trades in the maintenance shop. “I loved the variety.” He recalls being called in to fix a slew of broken windows in Smith Hall during the national draft protests in the winter of 1969\u201370. “It was colder than the dickens.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clifton Dow, who retired from Bates, died in 2012. Raymond Fortier has also passed away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I asked Ford if he thought that Dow and Fortier were pranking their younger colleague by writing his name around campus, or honoring him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Well I don’t know,” Ford replied. “But since they’re both gone now, I’ll take it as an honor!”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Yes, that\u2019s my name,\u201d said the man on the other end of the phone. \u201cBut I didn\u2019t write it.\u201d\u00a0We were getting so close to solving the “Fran K. \/ Frank” signature mystery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":142255,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[224],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-142482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-society-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142482"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":142526,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142482\/revisions\/142526"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}