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Note: William attended school in Franklin, Pennsylvania; Salina, Kansas; and Melbourne, Florida. His first job was as a newsboy in Franklin, PA. After moving to Melbourne, Florida with his parents in 1887, Frank became a bookkeeper. Then, at the age of twenty, he became a telegraph operator for the government at Melbourne and sent the daily weather reports to Jacksonville. The first message the received as a telegraph operator was that Benjamin Harrison had been elected President of the United States.
From 1897 to 1902, William lived in New York City, continuing to study and supporting himself by secretarial work. He then moved back home to Melbourne and was a bookkeeper at the Bank of Melbourne. He soon moved with the bank to Fort Pierce in November, 1902, and became an assistant cashier at the Fort Pierce bank. In 1904, he then entered the hardware and undertaking business that his father had established. He became president and treasurer of the Fee Hardware Company and president of the Fee Mortuary Company, both in Fort Pierce. He retired in 1944.
He was a 30-year director and a past president of the Fort Pierce Chamber of Commerce; president of the St. Lucie County Growers' League; president of the Fort Pierce Better Business Assoc.; charter member of the Fort Pierce Merchants' Assoc,; State director of the Better Business League; State director of the Tax Payer's League; president of the Funeral Directors and Embalmers of Florida; and charter member and president of the Fort Pierce Rotary Club. He served as City Commissioner of Fort Pierce in 1924-27, and was chairman of the St. Lucie Democratic Executive Committee. He played a major role in getting a channel dug for Fort Pierce allowing large ships to dock there and was also the leading figure in the mosquito eradification program for the east coast of Florida. He became the president of the Florida Anti-Mosquito Assoc. In the late thirties, he became the first chairman of the St. Lucie County Sanitary District. [The East Coast of Florida by Nance, p. 212 and The Story of Florida by W. T. Cash, p. 167]
I was unable to identify William in the 1900 census, but in 1910 he was living with his parents in Fort Pierce, Florida, age 37, working in the hardware store.
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