Home County: Adair
Term of Service at the Supreme Court of Missouri: January 1929 – September 1938
William Francis Frank was born in Schuyler County, Missouri, on November 27, 1874.[i] He attended the State Normal School in Kirksville, Missouri,[ii] and was a public school teacher for thirteen years in Adair and Schuyler counties.[iii] Frank began his teaching career at fifteen years old.[iv] While he was teaching, he studied law.[v]
Frank was admitted to the bar in 1903, in the Circuit Court in Memphis, Missouri,[vi] and practiced in Kirksville.[vii] The first law firm that he worked with was Smoot, Boyd & Smoot.[viii] He served as Police Judge for the city of Kirksville from 1905 to 1907[ix] and as City Attorney from 1907 to 1909 and 1909 to 1911.[x] Additionally, he was the Assistant Prosecuting Attorney of Adair County and was a member of the 1922-1923 State Constitutional Convention.[xi] In 1925 he resigned from the firm of Weatherby & Frank[xii] and served as the Assistant Attorney General for two years,[xiii] until his appointment to the position of Commissioner of the Kansas City Court of Appeals on March 7, 1927.[xiv] He served as Commissioner with the Kansas City Court of Appeals until he was nominated as Judge for the Supreme Court of Missouri.[xv]
On November 6, 1928, he was elected to the Supreme Court of Missouri for a term that began on January 1, 1929.[xvi] He was elected to serve a ten-year term that expired on December 31, 1938.[xvii] Judge Frank was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Missouri from May 1934[xviii] until October 1935.[xix] Judge Frank had died less than three months before his term with the Court was due to expire.
Judge William Francis Frank died on September 9, 1938.[xx]
[i] Dwight H. Brown, Secretary of State, Dwight H. Brown, publisher, State of Missouri, Official Manual, for Years Nineteen Thirty-seven and Nineteen Thirty-eight, (Jefferson City, MO: Midland Printing Co., 1938), 125.
[ii] Dwight H. Brown, Secretary of State, Dwight H. Brown, publisher, State of Missouri, Official Manual, for Years Nineteen Thirty-seven and Nineteen Thirty-eight, (Jefferson City, MO: Midland Printing Co., 1938), 125.
[iii] E. M. Violette, C.N. Tolman, ed., The History of Adair County, 1873-1940, (Kirksville, MO: Journal Printing Co., 1911), 601, information courtesy of Archive.org, accessed on July 16, 2019, available from https://archive.org/details/historyofadairco01viol/page/600 Copy of document available in file at the Supreme Court of Missouri Law Library.
[iv] E. M. Violette, C.N. Tolman, ed., The History of Adair County, 1873-1940, (Kirksville, MO: Journal Printing Co., 1911), 601, information courtesy of Archive.org, accessed on July 16, 2019, available from https://archive.org/details/historyofadairco01viol/page/600 Copy of document available in file at the Supreme Court of Missouri Law Library.
[v] E. M. Violette, C.N. Tolman, ed., The History of Adair County, 1873-1940, (Kirksville, MO: Journal Printing Co., 1911), 601, information courtesy of Archive.org, accessed on July 16, 2019, available from https://archive.org/details/historyofadairco01viol/page/600 Copy of document available in file at the Supreme Court of Missouri Law Library.
[vi] E. M. Violette, C.N. Tolman, ed., The History of Adair County, 1873-1940, (Kirksville, MO: Journal Printing Co., 1911), 601, information courtesy of Archive.org, accessed on July 16, 2019, available from https://archive.org/details/historyofadairco01viol/page/600 Copy of document available in file at the Supreme Court of Missouri Law Library.
[vii] Dwight H. Brown, Secretary of State, Dwight H. Brown, publisher, State of Missouri, Official Manual, for Years Nineteen Thirty-seven and Nineteen Thirty-eight, (Jefferson City, MO: Midland Printing Co., 1938), 125. See also: E. M. Violette, C.N. Tolman, ed., The History of Adair County, 1873-1940, (Kirksville, MO: Journal Printing Co., 1911), 601, information courtesy of Archive.org, accessed on July 16, 2019, available from https://archive.org/details/historyofadairco01viol/page/600 Copy of document available in file at the Supreme Court of Missouri Law Library.
[viii] E. M. Violette, C.N. Tolman, ed., The History of Adair County, 1873-1940, (Kirksville, MO: Journal Printing Co., 1911), 601, information courtesy of Archive.org, accessed on July 16, 2019, available from https://archive.org/details/historyofadairco01viol/page/600 Copy of document available in file at the Supreme Court of Missouri Law Library.
[ix] Dwight H. Brown, Secretary of State, Dwight H. Brown, publisher, State of Missouri, Official Manual, for Years Nineteen Thirty-seven and Nineteen Thirty-eight, (Jefferson City, MO: Midland Printing Co., 1938), 125. See also: E. M. Violette, C.N. Tolman, ed., The History of Adair County, 1873-1940, (Kirksville, MO: Journal Printing Co., 1911), 601, information courtesy of Archive.org, accessed on July 16, 2019, available from https://archive.org/details/historyofadairco01viol/page/600 Copy of document available in file at the Supreme Court of Missouri Law Library.
[x] Dwight H. Brown, Secretary of State, Dwight H. Brown, publisher, State of Missouri, Official Manual, for Years Nineteen Thirty-three and Nineteen Thirty-four, (Jefferson City, MO: Midland Printing Co., 1934), 117. See also: E. M. Violette, C.N. Tolman, ed., The History of Adair County, 1873-1940, (Kirksville, MO: Journal Printing Co., 1911), 601, information courtesy of Archive.org, accessed on July 16, 2019, available from https://archive.org/details/historyofadairco01viol/page/600 Copy of document available in file at the Supreme Court of Missouri Law Library.
[xi] Dwight H. Brown, Secretary of State, Dwight H. Brown, publisher, State of Missouri, Official Manual, for Years Nineteen Thirty-three and Nineteen Thirty-four, (Jefferson City, MO: Midland Printing Co., 1934), 117. See also: Supreme Court of Missouri, Memorial to William F. Frank, Judge of the Supreme Court, 1929-1938, (Jefferson City, MO: Supreme Court of Missouri, January 25, 1943), 6-7.
[xii] E. M. Violette, C.N. Tolman, ed., The History of Adair County, 1873-1940, (Kirksville, MO: Journal Printing Co., 1911), 601, information courtesy of Archive.org, accessed on July 16, 2019, available from https://archive.org/details/historyofadairco01viol/page/600 Copy of document available in file at the Supreme Court of Missouri Law Library.
[xiii] Charles U. Becker, Secretary of State, Charles U. Becker, publisher, State of Missouri, Official Manual, for Years Nineteen Twenty-Five and Nineteen Twenty-Six, (Jefferson City, MO: The Hugh Stephens Press, 1926), 45.See also: Charles U. Becker, Secretary of State, Charles U. Becker, publisher, State of Missouri, Official Manual, for Years Nineteen Twenty-Seven and Nineteen Twenty-Eight, (Jefferson City, MO: The Hugh Stephens Press, 1928), 127.
[xiv] Dwight H. Brown, Secretary of State, Dwight H. Brown, publisher, State of Missouri, Official Manual, for Years Nineteen Thirty-seven and Nineteen Thirty-eight, (Jefferson City, MO: Midland Printing Co., 1938), 125.
[xv] Dwight H. Brown, Secretary of State, Dwight H. Brown, publisher, State of Missouri, Official Manual, for Years Nineteen Thirty-three and Nineteen Thirty-four, (Jefferson City, MO: Midland Printing Co., 1934), 117.
[xvi] Charles U. Becker, Secretary of State, Charles U. Becker, publisher, State of Missouri, Official Manual, for Years Nineteen Twenty-Nine and Nineteen Thirty, (Jefferson City, MO: Botz Hugh Stephens Press, 1930), 123.
[xvii] Charles U. Becker, Secretary of State, Charles U. Becker, publisher, State of Missouri, Official Manual, for Years Nineteen Twenty-Nine and Nineteen Thirty, (Jefferson City, MO: Botz Hugh Stephens Press, 1930), 123.
[xviii] John Turner White, reporter, Reports of Cases Determined by the Supreme Court of the State of Missouri, vol. 335, (Columbia, MO: E.W. Stephens Publishing Co., 1935), iii.
[xix] John Turner White, reporter, Reports of Cases Determined by the Supreme Court of the State of Missouri, vol. 337, (Columbia, MO: E.W. Stephens Publishing Co., 1936), x.
[xx] John Turner White, reporter, Reports of Cases Determined by the Supreme Court of the State of Missouri, vol. 342, (Columbia, MO: E.W. Stephens Publishing Co., 1939), iii.
Biographical information authored by Ms. Anna Theroff, 2019, Washington University, St. Louis.