Who is Jacques Charles Franklin?

Jacques is my grandfather and Josh's great grandfather. He died in 1934 many years before I was born. He has always been a mystery to me. I've heard stories about him from various family members, some of them conflicting. I decided to find out more about him but by the time I began all those who knew him personally were gone. I had to rely on public records and whatever documents I could find. My task was to see whether or not the anecdotes matched the information on the documents, and even if the documents were correct!

The stories my mother told me proved to be accurate. One thing I learned was that Jacques was a soldier. First he served in the National Guard and later he served with the Coast Artillery during WWI.

Our cousin Norman Franklin generously provided some of his digitized family photographs to me, including this great one showing Jacques in his National Guard uniform. The photo was taken in Savannah Ga. in 1913-14, only a few years after Jacques immigrated to the U.S. in 1910.

He arrived in April of 1910 aboard the "Carminina" and just a few months later he was living in Oak Grove Illinois, married to my grandmother, Jessie Laurian Crouse.

We know that Jacques was in the Coast Artillery from U.S. government documents that I obtained. I also found a copy of his draft registration card which you can see above. Although this image is hard to read on the blog, you can download it and enlarge it. It sometimes helps to use a magnifying glass to confirm the details.

Jacques was born in Slatina Romania in 1886 to a Jewish family. His parents were named Isaac and Rosa Frankel. He had an older brother named Roland, born in 1881, also in Slatina. There may also have been other siblings, maybe two sisters, but I have not yet found documents confirming this. My sister Mary mentioned them to me in her recollection of a conversation with Jean, Jacques oldest daughter, now deceased. In a short time I hope to gain access to the vital records of Judetul Olt (Olt County) Romania, where Slatina is located. There may be more information there about other family members.

In later postings I'll include pictures of Jessie Crouse also. Her story is fascinating--the meeting and courtship of Jacques and Jessie is a real testament to true love. It was no small feat for them to meet and marry. It required a lot of coordination and trust during a period of history without email, text messages, international telephone calls, etc. They each made their way separately from Shanghai China where they had met, via England, to America. They found each other and settled into married life in just a few months after their arrival. More about this in future postings.

In the meantime I want to emphasize that the Franklin family has an extensive pattern of military service. This includes not only grandfather Jacques, but all of his sons, Roland, Russell, James and Theodore, as well as several of his grandsons. Their stories are well worth telling.

Theodore (Teddy) was the first American prisoner of war executed by the Japanese during WWII in what was essentially a terrorist act. He was chosen at random along with five other sailors aboard a captured ship, and beheaded before all of the captured crew. The full story was not known until several years after the war ended. Teddy was only nineteen years old.

Josh is the only one of Jacques great-grandchildren to serve in the military as far as I know. If there are others I would love to know who they are.

I will do my best to post the documents that have opened up some of the mystery of Jacque's life in the days to come.

Later I will add the current information I have regarding the family on my mother's side (Josh's grandmother Olive Hancock.) There is much more research and documentation available on her side. There are several cousins who served in the Civil War on the Union side in her paternal line. There are some who served in the Conferate Army on her maternal line.

My mother's lineage goes back to New England and passes through all the historical wars including the Revolutionary War. It will take more digging to find out who may have served in any of the American armies of those wars.

Although it isn't part of our military heritage, we do have an interesting ancestor whose second wife was tried and found guilty of witchcraft. So far we don't know if the sentence of hanging was carried out, although it seems likely. There is testimony from members of the jury and good documentation of the issues. It was clearly a frame-up. Her name was Lydia Gilbert.

Although I have not yet verified all the sources, I have made contact with distant relations who have researched our ancestors extensively, and it appears that we can trace their generations through the Gilberts back to thirteenth century in England.

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