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Title
Oral history interview with Gerry Frank [Sound Recording 05]
Date(s)
- 1991-11-06 (Creation)
Extent
Audiocassette; 00:30:46
Name of creator
Biographical history
Gerald "Gerry" Wendell Frank was born in Portland, Oregon, in 1923. He attended Stanford University, where he enrolled in the Reserve Officer Training Corps. He was called to active duty in the U.S. Army in 1943, and served in the European theater during World War II. During his Army training in California, he studied engineering at Loyola University. After his discharge in 1945, he remained in England and attended Cambridge University, where he earned a bachelor's degree in economics and a master's degree in politics.
After graduating, he returned to Portland and worked at the family business, the Meier & Frank department store. He opened and managed the Meier & Frank store in Salem, Oregon, in 1955. After the sale of Meier & Frank in 1965, Frank became involved with Mark Hatfield's political career, eventually becoming the senator's chief of staff. In 1981, he opened a dessert shop in Salem called Gerry Frank's Konditorei. He was a longtime contributor to the Oregonian newspaper and also authored a guidebook to Oregon, entitled "Gerry Frank's Oregon."
Frank died in March 2022.
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Tape 3, Side 2. This oral history interview with Gerry Frank was conducted by Jim Strassmaier in Frank’s office in Salem, Oregon, from July 16, 1991, to April 29, 1992. The interview was conducted in four sessions. In the second interview session, conducted on November 6, 1991, Frank continues discussing the life of his father, Aaron Meier Frank, including his management of the Meier & Frank Department Store beginning in 1937. He also continues discussing Meier & Frank’s newspaper advertisements. He talks about the use of credit lines in the department store, particularly during the Depression. He discusses the Meier & Frank board of directors, and begins talking about the expansion of the store into Salem.
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Conditions governing access
Copyright for this interview is held by the Oregon Historical Society. Use is allowed according to the following statement: Creative Commons - BY-NC-SA: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/.
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- eng
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Name access points
- Strassmaier, James (Contributor)