Part 1 (1/2)

Frank H. Nelson of Cincinnati.

by Warren C. Herrick.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book is made possible only through the interest and contributions of the many friends of Frank H. Nelson. s.p.a.ce does not permit my mentioning by name all who have furnished me with material, but I do wish to record my grat.i.tude to them. In addition to the years 1925-1928 as Mr. Nelson's a.s.sistant I spent two weeks in the autumn of 1943 interviewing a cross-section of Cincinnati and Christ Church. Many business men gladly gave of their time because they enjoyed recounting memories of one whom they loved, and often detained me when I felt I had imposed myself long enough. I noticed also that Mr. Nelson's photograph occupied a place of honor in more than one office as well as in many homes.

There are others far better qualified than I to write this story, and I accepted the task, though with a keen sense of my inadequacy, first, because Mrs. Nelson honored me with the request, and second because I have the strong conviction that it should be done for the sake of those who knew Mr. Nelson, and also for those of a succeeding generation who ought to know how one minister more than met the requirements of an exacting profession. Furthermore, I have written as one who owes an incalculable debt, and, therefore, cannot be wholly objective. While I have endeavored not to make this biography a eulogy, it is frankly his life as I saw it, and depicts one whom I loved, admired, and have tried to follow.

For innumerable suggestions and for valuable material I am particularly grateful to Mrs. Frank H. Nelson, to Mr. Nelson's sisters, Miss Margaret[1] and Miss Dorothea Nelson, and to Mr. Howard N. Bacon, who have helped me more than perhaps they know. Then there is the pleasant duty of expressing my thanks to Mr. Charles P. Taft, the Junior Warden of Christ Church, Cincinnati, for writing the foreword; to the Vestry of Trinity Church, Melrose, Ma.s.sachusetts for gladly granting me a leave of absence in 1943, and to Mrs. E. Howard Favor, my secretary, for the typing cheerfully undertaken. In the labor of preparing the final draft for the publishers I shall ever remember with grat.i.tude the careful thought and skillful phrasing of Miss Mary Putnam of the English Department of the Melrose High School whose corrections and amendments were nothing less than creative. Finally, I wish to let stand my heartfelt thanks to the Right Reverend Henry Knox Sherrill, Bishop of Ma.s.sachusetts, without whose encouragement and advice this little book could not have been written.

WARREN C. HERRICK

_Trinity Church_, _Melrose, Ma.s.sachusetts_; 1945.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Deceased, July 6, 1945.

A FOREWORD

How does one life affect another?

I have tried to remember what Frank Nelson directly asked me to do. He asked me to teach in the Sunday School, and I did it. Gradually I found myself studying out an intellectual foundation for faith in G.o.d. He never said anything to me about that, except from the pulpit. He wrote me asking that I act as captain in the Nation-wide Campaign, and I answered that I could not. But the next thing I remember was being a visitor in the Nation-wide Campaign, and I was always in it after that.

He asked me to serve on the Vestry, and somehow made me feel that nothing except being really sick was an excuse for not being there.

Certainly he never exhorted people to be civic patriots or reformers, and save the city. He just gave you such a human picture of the teeming life of a great city that it made a tear come to your eye to think of what the city could be at its best, and it made you love it and the people in it. Your own actions in civic affairs just naturally followed.

He wasn't an exhorter of virtue, but he made of clean living and n.o.ble service such a fascinating objective that people went to work on their own problems with fresh faith.

The only time I recall he was really annoyed with me was when I had an emergency operation for appendicitis in the middle of the night, and didn't let him know until the next day. He was my minister, and that meant _minister_. After that, when I had a major choice to make, I felt I was risking his disappointment unless I went down to talk to him about it.

He didn't want me to go to a great school as headmaster. ”The city is the place that needs service and talents,” said he. To that he had given his life, in the personal contact with his parish. His life stands as a symbol of the way a true love of home and community is tied to a love of all G.o.d's children everywhere.

CHARLES P. TAFT

_Arise, And Go Into The City_

”_Arise, And Go Into The City_”

--_Acts 9:6_

1

”Tell the rector of Christ Church that if he doesn't call off the Woman's Club, I'll bring the women of the streets to the polls.” And he added, ”He knows I can do it.” The boss of old Ward Eight, in which Christ Episcopal Church in downtown Cincinnati is located, had become alarmed by a serious threat to his power. Although this incident took place long before the coming of universal suffrage, Reverend Frank H.

Nelson, the young rector, had discovered that women had a legal right to vote in public school matters. Following his leaders.h.i.+p, the Woman's Club of Christ Church was actively supporting as a candidate for the Board of Education John R. Schindel, a fearless young lawyer in the Ward. This independent action was an open challenge to the dominance of the boss of Ward Eight, Mike Mullen. Though the courageous lawyer was defeated, and without the aid of the women of the streets, the affair was one of many which presaged the uprising that eventually wrenched the control of Cincinnati from the hands of one of the most notorious political gangs in American democracy.

A second ”pa.s.sage of arms” between the rector and Boss Mullen had its origin in the work of Christ Church among boys, and ultimately involved the boss of the entire city and his powerful machine. The privilege of running gambling games throughout Cincinnati had been alloted to one of the higher-ups in the organization. Within a block of the Parish House of Christ Church was a flouris.h.i.+ng candy store, so-called, but the chief ”confection” was a c.r.a.p game run for the boys of the neighborhood under the direction of a member of the City Council, and with the knowledge and acquiescence of the police department. It was inevitable that some members of Christ Church Boys' Clubs should lose their earnings, and whatever of character the church was building up was thus broken down.