Franklin B. Kirkbride

Franklin Kirkbride was a trustee—not just one of those men who invest money for beneficiaries, but a civic leader who worked at all kinds of public jobs that had to be done. He graduated from Haverford in 1889 (Phi Beta Kappa), and went into the Pennsylvania Company for Insurances on Lives and Granting Annuities in Philadelphia. There he learned about banking and securities; and after a time he came to New York and established the Franklin B. Kirkbride Financial Management Corporation. With this as his main base he became involved with various commercial enterprises, but he was particularly associated with the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor, the Community Service Society, Stevens Institute, and the Milbank Memorial Fund.

Frank’s father was a doctor, the first physician-in-chief of the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane, and a founder of the American Psychiatric Association; and Frank himself, all his life, was deeply interested in mental ailments and feeble-mindedness. He became Secretary of the Board of Visitors of Letchworth Village in 1909, and Board President in 1935. His conviction that research and study would lead ultimately to the control of mental disorder so impressed Governor Dewey that Letchworth Village was designated as the official center for the state’s research in mental deficiency and was provided with state funds for that purpose.

Frank was wise without pretense or ostentation. He had a twinkling, subtle sense of humor. He was a forthright, but discreet and generous, judge of men. He was born in Philadelphia, but withal his manner of speech reminded one irresistibly of Concord, Emerson, and Thoreau. He achieved large objectives with seemingly mincing gestures and enterprise.

In the Club he was an exceedingly useful member, serving at various times on the Auditing Committee, the Nominating Committee, the Board of Trustees (two terms), and for twenty years as Chairman of the Investment Committee. He had a happy faculty of not breeding resistance or antagonism when he made a report or initiated a proposal.

He was tirelessly interested in the Century. He was Chairman of the Levitation Committee that raised the money to pay for the new elevator two years ago, and just a few weeks before he died the Club awarded him the first Century Medal in recognition of all that he had done for us. Frank was eighty-eight years old, and he was as pleased as only an old man can be. He made a little speech that concluded: “My race is nearly run. My aging eyes can happily stand this momentary glare of the flash lights. From now on attention will be directed to the shadowy group of future Centurions who have still, as the years roll on, to face the kindly ordeal prescribed by future Admission Committees.”

George W. Martin
1956 Century Association Yearbook