You know, you're right. Thanks for the reminder and the perspective. Those guys WERE killers and that is a damned sight worse than a little bootlegging. I find digging into history, especially one's own family, fascinating. Along with old cars and hot rods, it seems to be as close as one can get a time travel. It ain't always pretty, but it's always interesting. This hotrod "thing" seems to run pretty deep for you, amigo. That right there is damned interesting. I hope you keep digging into that Bonneville racing connection and share what you uncover.
Probably a lot of people who never knew that they have relatives that helped outlaws at one time or the other. The dark side liked to stay in the dark, hence a lot of these folks never wanted their pictures taken. Probably a lot of their closest family members didn't know, either. Some things were never talked about..... Never heard about any of my family being involved in outside the law activities, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen, it just wasn't discussed. I do know my wife's Grandpa and her Dad made whiskey and bootlegged, she even went with them on delivery runs when she was a kid. Her Grandpa passed away in 1976, that ended any outside the law doings.....
Hotrodding was exciting and that was a vehicle for fun in the shade of darkness. It also makes one think of who we encounter in life. Where have you been while shaking hands or saying hello for the first time. We still live in a generation where many are old but lived through tougher times than we'll ever know. They're past they'll never tell for the most part out of shame or letting out stuff that could lead you know to the courtroom and barsville. I shouldn't forget to say bad shit didn't stop with the elders. You already know now what revolved in the closet and the more you dig the more negative dots will be connected with of course many amazing positive spins outside the closet. But there is an allure to the dark side of past and present...the wife watches many of those crime shows in interest. Despite all this negative stuff you were shielded from it till fairly recently the fog drifted your way. The family closeted the darkness that could have been bred into you hence the love you talk of. They were just like you and I caught up in this big revolving ball of decisions good and bad. This is life past and present.
So fucking cool . . . this is by far the biggest HAMB news in a long time . . . I mean this just connects so many dots. We never questioned your bona fides before this story, but goddamn! This is almost too good to be true! Proof again that truth is stranger than fiction. I cannot overstate what a mind blower this is . . . As far as Frank being a scumbag . . . you know, it's like looking behind the public curtain at entertainers and athletes. Let's just stick to what made them famous. For example (and there are many), Pete Rose was as good a ball player as there ever was, but not so great of a human being; OJ was one of the greatest ball carriers ever . . . Frank was a great hot rodder and a pioneer, let's just focus on that. damn
Ryan, all I can say is that you sometimes have to take the bad with the good. There's nothing, NOTHING, that will remove this from your storied history. Still, what you can do is embrace the positives that may have come from it. He was jailed according to your findings, yes? Debt paid? Some might say never but the fact is the law did what they felt was enough. So then what? Off toward more storied and positive results of that family member's life among us. Let's fast forward to today. You're here and founded a community of enviable proportions, yet not one of us here can raise a right hand and say all members of this community are as pure as the driven snow. My dear ol Dad street raced, I street raced, we never hurt or killed anyone but perhaps hundreds, if not thousands, have indeed caused injury or loss of life engaged in the same activity. So now I'm involved in the upper stratos of some of this stuff and I'd never hang my head in shame for my early street race days. Made me what I am today in some ways, and perhaps Frank's exploits made him something far more respectable than what you've found. Suppose that head pod and big windshield frame in the Ab Jenkins pic was the "Mormon Meteor" (Duesenberg Special)? Talk about moving up to better things, yes? Am I just being the optimist I tend to be at times? Maybe, but I think it still stands that some good eventually came from the bad. Like some current events, ill-conceived actions of erasing the past won't make it go away. And, I'll go on record and applaud your courage. You did give us your story and it's now within the "gospel of traditional hot rods" for good, and what also came though is that none of it was romanticized. Your thoughts and feelings about it are crystal clear. Bravo...
I think we all would be surprised by what we found if we really dug into Family History, what's going on now has always been going on, it was just different people doing it ... and some of them are probably related.
What an "interesting and notorious" story from your past Ryan, thanks for sharing it, despite the reservations, with the notoriety of the associations with such "High profile" criminals.
What's that saying? something about an apple not falling far from the tree? But really, my father-in-law had a story about when he was a boy in the early '30's on their farm south of Chicago. A big sedan got stuck in the mud and he and his father pulled them out with the farm tractor, The guys in the car gave them a $50 and sped off.
A great read that showed me another side of gangster history and hot rodding. My great uncle made those handy dandy thumb-lever ice cream scoops. His brother in law, my great granddad, made lightbulbs with Edison. Then there's my grandfather who took a Model A cross country when it was really stupid to attempt such a thing. In my way of thinking, he's the coolest of the three!
Thanks for the really interesting read....don't feel too much shame for your uncle's deeds in fact we live in a P/C world where we have very little perspective on how mere survival plays into how peoples morals and principles are enacted. Ostensibly one could separate themselves from the extreme actions ie: murder, robbery by saying although they did in some part facilitate they did not do the deed. Rationalizing yes but also the cold hard facts of the 1930's when there was no welfare state and you had to rely on your wits and experience to survive...especially during the great depression....some of us are even driving cars abandoned at the side of the road by poor peasant farmers who couldn't make it all the way to the promised land. Sure we're all bowing our heads and tisk tisking his actions but part of me smirks a bit and says he was pretty slick, well connected and musta had a good lawyer you don't think "baby face" wouldn't have a mental rolodex of who knew what and what to do to them if that information fell into the law's hands? being wily and playing both ends for the middle and being a criminal are two different sides of a very thin line.
Interesting story. This was your family history which involved hot rodding and he served time for his illegal activities- he paid for them. So enjoy his contribution to hot rodding,i do in your story.
Hey Ryan - loved the story and your honesty in telling it. It would have been far too easy to just glorify the fact that "Frank was a an original Hotrodder" . . . and not truly consider the facts of who he was enabling and what they were doing. You put a lot of thinking into Frank - not only about his performance exploits - but also that he was not a nice guy . . . that his actions materially contributed to some kids not seeing their Dads come back through the front door. (And he had to know those things). It wasn't like Frank had a couple "unsavory customers who had lots of money" - and he didn't ask and they didn't tell how they got that money . . . he knew exactly what they were up too and even helped facilitate their hiding from the Law (after they'd committed a murder). I appreciate the fact that you've considered the good, bad and the ugly of the story - didn't sugar coat any of it. No over-glorification . . . more like the truth . . . ugly as some of it may be. It is the duality of the man that actually makes this story so interesting - makes me ponder my own hotrod and "life" skills . . . would I have been the man to "say no" - either initially . . . or after I knew what my customers were up too - and my role in their criminal acts? Would I have said no to the money - especially if my family needed it? I don't have answers to those questions (I'd like to think I would have stayed on the "right side" of the law) but I'm also damn glad I wasn't wearing Frank's shoes and had to find out. Great research and fantastic story telling . . . keep after it! B&S
many of us that had family in the States for more than a hundred years have similar history. great granddad on my pops side drove the Deadwood Stage and on the same part of the family tree we are related to members of the james Gang. Before WW2 much of this country was still the wild west and these men grew up in a different mindset, add in the depression and you can see how stuff like this went on. Not excusing robbery and murder, just pointing out a fact. Awesome post
I used to live 2 houses down from an old man that owned a liquor store nearby, the walls in his store were covered with thousands of old black and white pictures of stock car races and drivers. several years later i pickup up a book at the library, "driving with the devil" which was mostly about Raymond Parks who drove carloads of moonshine from the mountains to Atlanta, since you could make more money in one trip than you could make in a month of unskilled labor at a regular job. I grew up in Rabun County GA, and my father was a forest ranger/game warden and he usually looked the other way when he discovered a moonshine still , since this was in the early 60s and before welfare, food stamps, unemployment, etc. so the uneducated Appalachian Americans who had no skills were making moonshine to keep from starving. Raymond Parks had a mechanic who souped up his cars to be able to outrun the police, and even had a stolen police radio, so he could listen to the police who were chasing him. Parks later used his money to finance early race teams and his mechanics to build the first cars to compete in nascar. I never realized I lived next to a man who was instrumental in starting nascar.
Great read. Truman played a part of the Pendergast Machine. Not surprising Frank got pardoned. I believe it is called "professional courtesy".
A good read. I would love to see one of those Hudson's set up exactly the way it was done in that era, and have a performance trial for it----top speed, acceleration, cornering ability, and how much of a load it could carry while doing all this. Compare it to a likewise setup police car of that time, and we could get an idea of how those guys got away most of the time.
Just saw this pop up on my feed. Great story Ryan, and great history for sure there. My grandfather was a Master Mechanic for the local bus company. But still liked to make things go fast. Always fun when we find slivers of our past and family to keep on going in the future.
I would think that Frank knew what could fit from what was available. Gasoline octane was pretty well set back then but if you could take pistons from a different car or mill a cylinder head to raise compression from 5.5 to near 7 you could out run anything limiting total timing. You were pretty much restricted with ignition voltage but if you could get one to advance quicker, lighter springs, that added to quicker acceleration. 3-4 simple changes could make the difference.
The Jalopy Journal
