Bio-Brown, Frank

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Frank Brown
(1864- ? )

Frank Brown was born on Jan. 11, 1864 near Cardington, Morrow County, OH, the son of James R. and Lydia (Miner) Brown. As a boy, he became a pioneer of Iowa and Kansas, and as a man an early settler of Oklahoma.

At about age three, Frank and his parents moved to DeSoto, IA, where they stayed for nine years. In 1877, they relocated again, to Montezuma, IA, remaining two years.

They moved to Medicine Lodge, Barber County, KS in 1879, where they ran a dairy. In 1884, they relocated within Barber County to Elm Creek, southwest of Isabel. With the prospects of the opening of the Oklahoma Indian Territory in April 1889, they decided to leave Kansas and took part in the Oklahoma Land Rush, settling near Kingfisher, OK.

The land rush was an exciting event for Frank and his father and sisters Nellie and Laura. According to a family manuscript:

... Their outfit consisted of two covered wagons which was trailed by one horse buggy. They reached the line west of Kingfisher without mishap on the night before the great day of the Land Rush. It was decided that Nellie and her sister, Laura ... were to ride in the Land Rush (with James R. Brown and Frank Brown to come on later), in the one horse buggy, driving a mule who was gentle.

Kingfisher, Oklahoma, early 1900s

In about 1896, when Frank was age 32, he married 30-year-old Nannie Snyder (1866- ? ) (seen at right). She was born in Kentucky. They did not have any children.

Nannie was an early grade school educator, and may have met Frank when instructing his younger sisters. She taught during the winter of 1894-1895 in the one-room, log-hewn Excelsior Township Schoolhouse near Kingfisher. The school session was held just five years after the Oklahoma Territory was opened for settlement. Among Nannie's young students were her future sisters in law Emma (Brown) McGirk and Bertha (Brown) Keck. Nannie stands as the tallest person in the photograph, just to the right of the third window from the left.

Of the solid-looking schoolhouse, Frank's sister Laura penned this in a one-page handwritten memoir:

Built in the fall and winter of 1890-1891. The shingles are shakes or clapboards, made from the native oak trees. Also the siding in the gable ends and door and window casing.

Excelsior School, Kingfisher, Oklahoma

Later, by 1900, the Browns are believed to have relocated to California, making their home in San Diego, San Diego County. There, the 1900 federal census shows that Frank was a cemetery superintendent. In 1910, they resided on Mississippi Street in San Diego, where Frank was employed as a landscape gardener.

Frank and Nannie moved during the decade of the 1910s to Arvin, Kern County, CA. The census of 1920 shows them residing in the home of Alfred and Freda Staples, with Frank working as a hired man and laborer on a small ranch, and Nannie as the family's housekeeper.

When the census of 1930 was enumerated, the Browns made their home on Casa Loma Street in the Union District of Kern County. There, Frank labored as a farmer on a chicken ranch.

Frank died in Arvin sometime after 1930. Nannie's fate is unknown.