|
Server : Apache/2.4.62 System : FreeBSD fbsdweb2.web.rcn.net 14.1-RELEASE FreeBSD 14.1-RELEASE releng/14.1-n267679-10e31f0946d8 GENERIC amd64 User : www ( 80) PHP Version : 8.3.8 Disable Function : NONE Directory : /domains/agribiz/Jennings Heritage/ |
Upload File : |
<html>
<head>
<meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 5.0">
<meta name="ProgId" content="FrontPage.Editor.Document">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=windows-1252">
<title>Francis Bates Jennings</title>
<style>
<!--
p.MsoNormal
{mso-style-parent:"";
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";
margin-left:0in; margin-right:0in; margin-top:0in}
-->
</style>
</head>
<body>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align: center"><b><i>
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt">Francis Bates Jennings, M.D.</span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align: center"><b><i>
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt"> (1885-1957) </span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align: center"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt"> </span><font size="2">Nicholas
E. Hollis</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center"><font size="2">All Rights Reserved</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<div align="center">
<center>
<table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-width: 0" bordercolor="#111111" width="65%">
<tr>
<td width="100%" style="border-style: none; border-width: medium">
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<div align="center">
<center>
<table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-width: 0" bordercolor="#111111" width="48%">
<tr>
<td width="100%" style="border-style: none; border-width: medium">
<p align="center">
<img border="0" src="Francis.jpg" width="327" height="422"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="100%" style="border-style: none; border-width: medium">
<p align="right"><i><font size="1">Courtesy of Jennings Heritage
Project</font></i></p>
<p align="left"><span style="font-size: 9pt"><i>"A wise physician,
skill'd our wounds to heal, is more than armies to the public weal"
(Pope)</i></span></td>
</tr>
</table>
</center>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><font size="1"> </font></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Francis Bates Jennings, M.D. was born on December 4, 1885 in
Avondale, New Jersey, the fourth child of William Nevinson Jennings and Susan
Geraldine Williams Jennings. His father was a successful, thirty-eight year old
entrepreneur-businessman with a growing publishing and engraving company in
lower Manhattan. Susan was a self-taught Irish emigrant dedicated to home-making
and education. Frank was home-schooled in his early years, being of fragile health, later attending
public schools in New Brunswick, New Jersey and Brooklyn, New York near Prospect
Park (Boys High). From an early age Frank distinguished himself with natural
athleticism, leadership qualities, and dashing good looks. He excelled in
football, baseball and rugby � and enjoyed camping, boating and other outdoor
pursuits -- benefiting from explorations of the Delaware Valley made possible
from his family�s summer retreat near Port Jervis, New York.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><i>Early Tragedies Shape a Life</i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><i> </i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Frank�s love of outdoor life and early self-reliance
developed from watching his older brothers (John E. �Jack� and William �Bill�
Nevinson Jr.) and listening to Jennings family lore through his father�s stories
of ancestors dating back to the seventeenth century, and leading up to his
grandfather (Joel Albert Jennings). This grandfather was the first family member to graduate from college and
Harvard Law School, but became a gold prospector and transcendental lecturer
during the 1849 California gold rush. Frank did not know this grandfather who
lived a nomadic life, dying of malaria in Panama in 1873, but sensed he had the spirit of a
pioneer-adventurer in his genes.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Frank was also a survivor. In the late 1880s, he witnessed
helplessly as his three sisters -- Susan Geraldine (5), Adelaide (4), and Dorothea (2) --
succumbed in rapid succession to whooping cough outbreaks. A short time later,
while skating on the frozen Passaic River near his family home at night, Frank
suddenly fell through a hole in the ice. Immersed in frigid, swift-moving
waters, he momentarily lost his bearings and drifted under the ice into the
inky, freezing darkness. Quickly regaining his cool-headed composure, Frank
remembered there was an air pocket between ice and moving water. He managed to
arch his body into a back-float position and, while anchoring his skate-tips
into the ice above, gulped needed oxygen. Frank knew he had only a few minutes
before hyperthermia would begin paralyzing him -- yet maneuvered calmly, inching
his way steadily with gloved hands and skate-tips, in the direction where he
thought the ice hole was located. Miraculously, he found it � and, after
removing one skate for a pick, pulled himself out of that icy river. Later, warmed by a pot-bellied stove,
Frank downplayed the incident, remembering his mother�s traumatic loss of her
own little brother (John Lewis Williams), as she watched helplessly, unable to
swim, when he drowned in the Neversink River near Post Jervis years earlier.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Although tempered in tragedy, the William Nevinson Jennings
family celebrated the birth of a fourth daughter, Ruth Hastings Jennings, in
1893. </p>
<table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-width: 0" bordercolor="#111111" width="105%" height="494">
<tr>
<td width="59%" height="494" style="border-style: none; border-width: medium">
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Despite their father�s declining business fortunes dating
back to the bank panic, brothers Jack and Frank resolved to become physicians,
perhaps in response to their parents� despondency over the losses of the three
older daughters at such young ages. The brothers attended Rutgers Preparatory School in New
Brunswick where they were gifted students. Jack graduated from Rutgers
University and attended Columbia University�s School of Physicians and
Surgeons. Frank graduated in 1910 from Yale University where he was active in varsity baseball and
soccer. He later followed Jack by studying medicine at Columbia, graduating in
1913. Both young doctors had medical residencies at Brooklyn hospitals, with
older brother Jack, becoming one of the founders of the American College of Surgeons and
Physicians.</p>
<p> </td>
<td width="47%" height="494" style="border-style: none; border-width: medium">
<p align="center">
<img border="0" src="Jennings.jpg" width="271" height="334" align="middle"></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: -0pt" align="center">
<i><font size="1">Yale Graduation, 1910</font></i></p>
<p align="center"> </td>
</tr>
</table>
<table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-width: 0" bordercolor="#111111" width="100%">
<tr>
<td width="50%" style="border-style: none; border-width: medium">
<p align="center">
<img border="0" src="Nellie%20New.jpg" width="266" height="352"></p>
<p align="center" style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><font size="1">
Nellie Alene Armstrong (1891-1964) </font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><font size="1"> as a
young nurse at Brooklyn Hospital, 1913</font></p>
</td>
<td width="50%" style="border-style: none; border-width: medium">
<p class="MsoNormal">
The Jennings family had moved back into New York City
around 1895 and lived in a succession of brownstones, each one in a slightly less
desirable neighborhood than the last. In 1912, the family was forced to retrench to a
home in Bedford-Stuyvesant, which had been owned by William Nevinson�s mother,
Sarah Bates Jennings (1824-1884) who had been a successful publicist and music
teacher.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0" align="right"> </p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0">During his residency at Brooklyn Hospital, Frank became
interested in Nellie Armstrong, a young nurse seven years his junior, who had
emigrated from Nova Scotia and was popular with the patients. Nellie came from a
big family with a successful father, Edward Lawson Armstrong (1853-1925), who
was Superintendent of Schools in Pictou, Nova
Scotia. The Armstrong family traced back to Scotland, as a feared warrior clan,
but Nellie�s Canadian forbearers had become famous shipbuilders. She was proud
of her heritage. After a three-year courtship, the couple was married in Pictou
on June 21, 1916.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left"><font size="1"> </font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><i>Yale Mobile Field Hospital in France</i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><i> </i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Married life for Frank and Nellie came to an abrupt hiatus
in April 1917 with the U.S. decision to enter World War I and the formation of
the American Expeditionary Force (AEF). When word reached him that a beloved
Yale professor and surgeon (Dr. Joseph Marshall Flint) was organizing a special
mobile medical unit for field hospital work in France, Frank jumped at the chance and enlisted in the
U.S. Army Medical Corps. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">He received an officer�s commission as a lieutenant and
sailed with the Yale Mobile Medical Unit #39 in August 1917. While the AEF
developed and gained strength with minimal action, Unit #39 was stationed near a railhead
in Limoges, a beautiful city on the Vienne River in south/central France about one
hundred miles northeast of Bordeaux. Six months later, the unit was redeployed to
Chaillons near the AEF main concentration at St. Mihiel (General Pershing�s HQ) in
the Meuse-Argonne region. The Yale unit served in support of the decisive
offensive in October-November 1918 where the AEF, in coordination with Allied
forces in the north near Sedan, forged a series of bloody victories, breaking through German lines
and morale, leading to the Armistice of November 11. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left"><font size="1">
</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><i>Challenges of Civilian Life</i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><i> </i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">When Frank Jennings returned to New York a seasoned field
surgeon in April 1919, Nellie presented him with the first of three daughters,
Geraldine, born a year earlier (1918) while he was in France. He had expected to
rejoin the staff of the Brooklyn Hospital where his brother Jack was now a
leading surgeon, but inexplicably, instead, had an angry falling out with his superiors, including his
brother, over some procedure </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">he considered outdated. He relocated his family to Bristol,
Connecticut (outside Hartford) with help from a Yale classmate and began a new
practice. Perhaps he hoped for a return to Brooklyn, or quite likely he wanted a
fresh start outside his brother�s �sphere of family influence.�</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><i>Vision of the Small Modern Hospital</i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Following the birth of his second daughter, Marion, in
November 1919, in Brooklyn, </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Frank Jennings became an important medical leader in
Bristol. For the next eight years, he advanced professionally, becoming a
community leader and helping to enlarge the town�s main hospital. He was a gifted surgeon and a
voracious reader of medical journals, always seeking greater breadth of
knowledge in the rapidly changing medical field. On October 17, 1925, Frank
Jennings presented a paper,<i>�The Small Modern Hospital,� </i>before the
Hartford County Medical Association annual meeting at Hartford. His talk was a
well-prepared argument for small hospitals and caught considerable attention. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><i>Tragic Losses Alter Lives</i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Professional success was eclipsed, however, with the birth
on June 29, 1924 of a blond, blue-eyed son named for Francis Bates Jennings and
nicknamed �Bunny.� Having a male heir for continuance of his family branch and
his legacy was important to Frank, who traced his lineage to Stephen Jennings of
Hatfield and the Great Rescue Mission of 1677-78. With a doting mother and two attentive sisters,
young Bunny was the apple of his father�s eye. The healthy toddler was on the
flowering edge of infancy, just learning to talk, when he was stricken with the
deadly scarlet fever. Once again, Frank � now even as a physician, could do
little but watch the disease take its course in his quarantined house. The
struggle wore on for three months, and the end came only a few weeks short of
Bunny�s third birthday on March 20, 1927 plunging the family into a spiral of
deep despair and grief.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Frank Jennings completed his son�s death certificate with a
shaking hand, and the family took a sad journey to Brooklyn where his namesaked
son was buried in the family plot on a promontory in Evergreen Cemetery. Dr.
Jennings resolved never to mention Bunny�s name in family conversation again.
The pain was too deep.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">After the intense sorrow of his own childhood losses and
the shock of the field hospital in France, with modern warfare and gas chemical attacks
destroying young men by the thousands, compounded by the unexpected death of his
mother, Susan Geraldine, shortly after his return in 1919, the stern
warrior-surgeon stood unmanned in the presence of death. His wife, Nellie,
suffered a mild nervous breakdown and in the gloomy months that followed,
despair turned into depression and his practice suffered. In 1928, matters
worsened when a child-patient under Jennings� care died and the father, a
prominent Bristol business leader, became convinced that the physician was to
blame. The two men argued and the exchange turned heated. A power struggle
ensued and the distraught businessman pulled in his markers vowing Jennings
would not practice medicine again in the town. Jennings was forced to leave Bristol under a
cloud despite the fact that no formal proceedings were ever initiated.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><i>A String of Misfortunes</i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Relying on an offer from a Yale classmate, Jennings
relocated to York, Pennsylvania with the understanding he would take over the
practice of that classmate who wanted to move West. But misfortune played havoc again as Jennings
found his colleague�s medical equipment unusable and the practice virtually
non-existent. Months after hanging out his shingle with no patients appearing,
Jennings discovered his colleague (long gone to Oregon) had actually used the
place to conduct illegal abortions. As a result, no self-respecting citizen wanted to be seen
entering the premises � day or night � even with hospital references. Jennings
packed up and returned to Connecticut where he struggled to re-invent his
practice in Hartford only to find more professional sabotage. Perhaps Jennings
was na�ve, with his nemesis only a few miles distant in Bristol. On November 25,
1929 -- a few weeks after the Stock Market crash, another tragedy struck the
family when a newborn son, Joel Coolidge Jennings, died only three days after birth.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><i>The Great Call North</i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">By 1930, Jennings pulled up stakes in Connecticut to accept
an offer from an old acquaintance (Dr. G.P. Gifford who had been impressed by
his talk on rural hospital development ) and drove his family into the Green
Mountains of Vermont � and the small town of Randolph. The town was nestled in the
White River Valley with excellent rail connections to New York and Boston. More
importantly for Jennings, Randolph had a clinic with forward-looking physicians
who dreamed of expanding the facility to a hospital.. As a sweetener, the town
offered Jennings a beautiful house with a wrap-around porch, a large barn, and
adjoining office for his practice on one of its most prominent avenues, with close proximity to a
nine-hole golf club.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><i>A Country Doctor Flourishes</i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Vermont proved a �good elixir� for Dr. Jennings� spirit. He
employed his experience and leadership skills as a surgeon and a
fundraiser/organizer to mount a successful campaign in partnership with Dr. G.P.
Gifford and effectively modernized Randolph�s clinic into Gifford Memorial
Hospital over the next twenty-five years. As the lead surgeon and a general practitioner, Jennings soon became the father
figure for the next generation </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">of physicians at Gifford. His love of the outdoors
(camping, hunting, golf) was easily accessed in and around Randolph -- and Frank
soon became a recognized leader in the community�s civic activities through Rotary Club,
Bethany Church and Montague Golf Club. In 1931, at the age of 38, Nellie
produced a third daughter, Naomi. Perhaps Frank had hoped for another son, but
knew his wife could not risk another pregnancy.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As a respected town elder, Jennings wore his gruff, laconic
exterior like a coat of armor, but his patients recognized the kindness and
sincerity of his skilled care. He was sparing with words and worked to keep his
volcanic temper in check. Often in the Depression the physician provided medical services with credit
(extended repayment terms). He frequently saw patients at his home office where his
wife kept the books. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Dr. Jennings married off his three daughters in his
spacious, rolling backyard garden in Randolph, Vermont. All three had graduated from Randolph
Union High School and gone on to become college graduates. His middle
daughter, Marnie, graduated from Wellesley College with honors as a fiction writer in
June 1941 and produced Jennings first grandchild -- a few weeks before the D-Day
landings at Normandy in May 1944. The local newspaper recorded the proud
grandfather�s joy, describing Jennings spontaneous rendition of �Rock-a-Bye
Baby� sung at the Rotary Club meeting later that week (May 18) to announce the
birth at Gifford. Jennings had assisted the birth. A second grandson was born to
daughter Geraldine in April 1945. Both of his first </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">sons-in-law were commissioned officers in the United States
Navy on board ships when their sons were born. Dr. Jennings no doubt reminded
them that he outranked them � having received a promotion to major in the Army
medical reserves in 1924.</p>
<div align="center">
<center>
<table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-width: 0" bordercolor="#111111" width="40%">
<tr>
<td width="100%" align="center" style="border-style: none; border-width: medium">
<img border="0" src="Francis%20Bates%20and%20Nellie%20Alene%20Jennings%20(circa%201950).jpg" width="351" height="488"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="100%" align="center" style="border-style: none; border-width: medium">
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center"><i><font size="1">Dr Jennings and Wife
Nellie Armstrong</font></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center"><i><font size="1">1950</font></i></p>
<p> </td>
</tr>
</table>
</center>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal">In the midst of his active life, Frank Jennings maintained
contact with his Ivy League world by regularly attending Yale reunions and
medical conferences. His familiarity with the patrician life-style of the
wealthy and widespread contacts served him well when approaching potential
donors for his various hospital and clinic expansion projects.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><i>A Sudden End </i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Late in his career, Dr. Jennings branched out, spearheading
the formation of the White River Valley Clinic at White River Junction in the
1950s. He made time to matriculate at the world renowned Mayo Clinic in
Rochester, Minnesota -- learning the latest surgical techniques. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In early 1955, Jennings retired from the practice of
medicine to spend more time on woodworking (he was an accomplished cabinet maker
in his basement shop) and </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">enjoyed his farm near Stockbridge. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Restless in retirement, he began traveling. Frank and
Nellie had just returned from an arduous cross-country road trip to see the
Grand Canyon in Arizona. On September 2, 1957, Dr. Francis Bates Jennings
suffered a sudden heart attack and died at the hospital he had served,
surrounded by colleagues and nurses he had trained who were unable to revive
him. His unexpected passage shook Randolph. Grown men were seen crying in </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">the streets. Several days later, Frank was laid to rest
alongside his father and mother in the Jennings Family plot at Evergreen
Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York. His sister, Ruth Hastings Jennings
(Anderson) coordinated the funeral arrangements.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><i>Sources:</i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u>History of Class of 1910</u>, Yale University, New
Haven, p. 200</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u>Reports Regarding the Yale Mobile Unit in World War I</u>,
Dr. Joseph M. Flint, Yale </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">University, 1920</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i> </i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>�The Small Modern Hospital�</i> Francis B. Jennings,
(From Proceedings of Connecticut</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> State Medical Society, 1926)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u>Daily Times</u> (Barre, Vermont) <i>�Dr. Gifford Takes
Associate</i>�. May 20, 1930</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u><span style="text-decoration: none"> </span></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u>Randolph Herald</u>, �Soloist� May 18, 1944</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u>Randolph Herald,</u> �<i>Death Comes Suddenly to Two
Randolph Neighbors</i>�, September 5, 1957, p.1</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u>Rutland Herald</u>, �<i>Dr. Jennings Dies at 71</i>�
September 3, 1957</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u>Randolph Herald,</u> �<i>A Story- and a Tribute</i>�
Rev. Otis R. Heath (Summarized from remarks by officiating pastor at funeral of
F.B. Jennings, Bethany Church, Randolph, Vermont � Sept. 5, 1957)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u>Randolph Herald</u>, �<i>From Randolph to Washington�,</i>
February 21, 2002 (Nicholas E. Hollis), p. B1</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-width: 0" bordercolor="#111111" width="100%">
<tr>
<td width="100%" style="border-style: none; border-width: medium">
<p align="center" dir="ltr"><font face="Arial" size="2"><b><i>Jennings Heritage
Project<br>
</i></b>P.O. Box 5565 - Washington DC 20016<br>
Tel: (202) 296-4563<br>
Email: <a href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a></font><p align="center" dir="ltr"><b>
<a href="origins_of_a_farmer_soldier.htm">Farmer-Soldier Tradition: The
Jennings of Brookfield</a></b><p align="center" dir="ltr"><b><a href="../heritage.htm">
<font face="Arial" size="2">Heritage
Preservation</font></a></b><font face="Arial" size="2"> </font>
<p align="center" dir="ltr"><b><font face="Arial" size="2">
<a href="JHP%20enrollment%20form.htm">Enrollment Form for Jennings
Heritage Project</a></font></b><p align="center" dir="ltr"><b><a href="../default.htm">
<font face="Arial" size="2">Home</font></a></b><font face="Arial" size="2">
</font>
<p align="center" dir="ltr"> <p align="center" dir="ltr"><b><i><font size="2" face="Arial">"Leadership
Education and Character Development Through Historical Scholarship"</font></i></b></td>
</tr>
</table>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</center>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
</body>
</html>