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Note: REFN2 Franklin Bartlett Benkard 1903 - 1977
The following was copied from information submitted to the Harvard University 25th Anniversary Report of the Class of 1925. It is dated Tan 3 1950. Educated: Bovee School for Boys 4 East 49th St The Browning School Class 1921 (1916-1921) Harvard College 1925 A.B. Colombia Law School 1928 L.L.B.
Wartime Posts On April 4th 1944 was appointed Associate Government Appeal Agent and on May 28th 1945 Government Appeal Agent, of Local Board No 27, Selective Service, with headquarters in New York City. He also served in the Coast Guard Reserve patrolling the docks in New Jersey at night. He had a uniform made by Abocrombie and Pitch, a sleeping bag from the same store and dinner made by my mother; His only weapon was a nightstick. In fairness to my father, he was over the age for the draft T�B�T�) Offices held Director and Treasurer of the Julliard School of Music 1941-1977 Director of the Midnight Mission Society (an organization who helped "unfortunate girls" in other words unwed mothers.
Member of:
The Century Association Knickerbocker Club Bar Associations: Association of the Bar of the City of New York; American Bar Association; and the New York State Bar Association.
Misc. Societies: Holland Lodge No. 8 F. and A.M.; New York State Society of the Cincinnati; The Pilgrims of the United States; St Nicholas Society of the City of New York; Society of the Mayflower Descendants.
Essay: I went to Colombia Law School after we graduated because I wanted to practice in New York, which is and ( deo volente ) always will be my home. I had been slated from the law from the beginning because my grandfather had been a lawyer and my great u ncle a judge This is hardly an infallible formula. Colombia is not interested in antecedents, and I had to sweat for my degree. However I got it finally and began to practice in the autumn of 1928. My career at the bar can be summarized in a very few words. I took a job with a downtown law firm and went to work. After some years I became a member of the firm. I am still with it and plan to stay. Incidentally our classmate Theodore Pearson was hired with me. We are now partners but remain on excellent terms. My actual practice has been no more spectacular, from a layman's standpoint. It has nothing to do with espionage or crimes of violence, and little with infidelity, alienation of affections, or the Allied Arts. Chiefly it has been concerned with the mechanics and intricacies of finance, high and low. But within its scope, the work has been very varied, often exciting and rarely dull. Years ago I spent months digging through the Kreuger empire, and more recently played a modest part in setting up th e legal framework for some billions of dollars of war production loans. More than once I have been near an ulcer diet (later he did have an ulcer J�B�J�) but I have never found time hanging heavy on my hands.
In 1932, I married a Boston girl who was spending the winter in New York and did not get back in time. She is at my side as I write, or at any rate somewhere around the house, if she has not gone out. We have 2 children 16 and 12 who are also quite satisfactory. Since we were married we have lived in a succession of New York apartments, changing sizes as the family grew. In the early days we rented summer houses in the country, except when we were hard up. (any New Yorker that says that the city is a good s ummer resort is hard up.) A few years ago I bought a house in St James Long Island where we spend the summer and most weekends. My wife loves St James because it is like New England, and I am content there because, although rural, it is not far from town . My main outdoor interest is fishing, a weakness which my wife fortunately shares. We have been as far as Newfoundland after salmon, and have spent many vacations in Quebec and northern Maine, trout and landloc
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