Francis M. Weld

Francis Minot Weld. [Born] 1875. Banker. Thirty-five years a Centurion, fifteen years a member of our Investment Committee.

Frank Weld disdained the rôle of patriotic banker in the First World War and at forty-two was a captain of infantry in the trenches of France, brevetted major in the lines, wounded in action, decorated with the Silver Star and the Purple Heart.

During World War II, well past the Army retiring age, he added to his many civic responsibilities the arduous service as commanding officer of the Manhattan Division of the City Patrol Corps, that obscure, completely unpublicized but vitally important volunteer outfit that was the reserve of the overworked N.Y. Police force.

This was Frank Weld. He rolled up his sleeves and quietly went to work wherever help was needed, with an old-school courtesy that was wholly of his nature.

His outstanding characteristic was his enthusiasm. In whatever he did, always the evidence of deep, absorbing interest was manifest. It was the same in his civic and charitable work, in his business, in his responsiveness to friends, in his eagerness for games. And all of this was without any clamor: his helpfulness glowed with a steady flame. Helpful work to him was not a chore, but a privilege, and happy were all who worked with him.

We walked out of our Investment Committee meeting into a cool bright Autumn day—Frank Weld, Ray Morris, Frank Kirkbride, Paul Kieffer and I—and the next thing we knew he was dead, killed in an airplane crash. Courtly, enthusiastic, courageous, Frank Weld could not be dead; but alas! he was, he was.

Source: Henry Allen Moe Papers, Mss.B.M722. Reproduced by permission of American Philosophical Society Library & Museum, Philadelphia

Henry Allen Moe
Henry Allen Moe Papers, 1949 Memorials