Bertha Rayner Frank was born in the city of Baltimore on July 16, 1847. She was the daughter of the late William S. and Amalie Rayner, and the eldest of five children, two of whom, George W. and the Hon. Isidor Rayner, who at the time of his death was United States Senator from Maryland, pre-deceased her.
She was educated privately, first at Streeter’s school on Charles Street in Baltimore, and afterwards at a school in Catonsville. The influences of her home life directed her mind to communal and religious affairs, which engaged her attention throughout her life. Her father was deeply interested in the religious and charitable progress of the community. He was one of the incorporators and first president of the Hebrew Benevolent Society of Baltimore. He gave the ground and building for the original Hebrew Orphan Asylum of that city, and was at one time its treasurer; he was incorporator and for many years president of the Har Sinai Temple, the first Reform synagogue in Baltimore. The eager young woman early became imbued with a strong religious feeling, which strengthened with the years, and she learned, too, to look upon the poor, the unhappy, and the restricted with a sympathy that was perhaps her most striking characteristic.
On December 16, 1869, she married Dr. Samuel Leon Frank, a young physician of broad interests, and like herself deeply concerned with Jewish affairs, but a shadow passed over their lives after a few years when Mrs. Frank’s health became impaired. In 1878 the couple went abroad with a number of Baltimore friends, partly to consult specialists in regard to her health, and the trip was filled with happy incidents. When she returned, it was to become an invalid and a sufferer for the rest of her life.
A period of nearly four decades of invalidism and pain would produce at best a blank of life and history for most persons; for Mrs. Frank these years became filled with interests of all kinds, with large things done for the city or state or for the welfare of Judaism, with a sympathetic attempt to reach the needy, whether that need was for education, amusement, raiment, or bread, with warm friendships and keen appreciation of her friends* achievements, which she followed with such happy ardor and so much good human feeling. It was a revelation to many who met her for the first time, or only occasionally, to discover in the invalid a person completely alive to and fully informed on private and public affairs, and the doings great and small in the community.
The freshness of her interests never slackened. Almost to the very last moment she was eager to examine and weigh any new project placed before her, and her openness of mind was matched by her keenness of perception. She was a woman of strong mental traits, quick to discern, wise in judgment, definite in desires, direct in statement. Had her health remained unimpaired, this sketch would have been of one who had left the mark of a vivid personality in many directions on the larger Jewish affairs.
Mrs. Frank’s mind remained young and supple even in advancing years. She not only welcomed the new, but grasped its meaning quickly, and allied herself promptly on the side of progress. Thus in spite of her numerous private and personal charities which she maintained to the last, she was an enthusiastic supporter of the Federated Jewish Charities of Baltimore, and when it was formed, sought to make her subscription as large as any that was obtained. She believed in, urged and supported organization, though she never thought of confining her gifts in this one channel.
As illustrating the quickness of her perceptions, her relations to the Daughters in Israel may be cited. When in 1890 an organization that had as its principal object the personal service of Jewish women in the interest of their less fortunate sisters was suggested, she took up the plan with enthusiasm, and when the Daughters in Israel was finally formed, she became its guardian angel, and maintained her unflagging interest and enthusiasm in the organization and in its work. She herself sent out the call for the first meeting, and her father suggested the name of the new organization, and its motto, “ Love thy neighbor as thyself.” The plan of the work was to form bands of ten for personal service, an idea that now after the lapse of nearly a quarter of a century has become the basis of a great movement. Before the organization of the Daughters in Israel, she had supported the Frank Sabbath School, which is still one of the cherished activities of that association. When this organization undertook to conduct a Working Girls* Home, the first of the kind for Jewish girls in the country, it was Mrs. Frank who supplied $5500 out of the $10,000 necessary to buy the building, and after the death of Dr. Frank, in 1906, it received her further gift of $10,000. This sum was later used to help to build the fine addition to the Home, at the dedication of which Mrs. Frank made one of her rare appearances in public. Her constant care and attention, extending in this case over a period of nearly twenty-five years, demonstrate how constant and loyal she remained through the changing years, in spite of the fresh demands uponher, and the new problems and causes in which she became interested.
She did not limit her bounty by any narrow principle of distribution. On the contrary, though her early religious influence had been along Reform lines, she became no exclusive partisan even of her own principles. As she once remarked to President Schechter, “ There is no time or even real opportunity for quarreling, especially now, when we have to resist a whole world.”
She contributed a scholarship annually to the Jewish Theological Seminary of America for many years, and to the Hebrew Union College, the William S. Rayner scholarship, and after the death of her husband, the Dr. Samuel Leon Frank scholarship also ; both of which she afterwards endowed with the sum of $15,000. The Johns Hopkins University also received a fellowship, and “ her name heads the list of those who donated for the establishment of a permanent fund for the Jewish Chautauqua.”
After the death of Dr. Frank, she came into a considerable inheritance from his estate, and soon organizations and institutions began to feel the benefit from the new fund at her disposal, her means having theretofore consisted of the income of the estate left in trust for her by her father. Some of her gifts were :
• The Samuel Leon Frank Hospital.
• Rayner Frank Loan Fund to the Hebrew Benevolent Society.
• A similar fund to a society in Lakewood, N. J.
• The Home of her parents (furnished) to the Instructive Visiting Nurses’ Association.
• Endowed bed for sick nurses in the Hebrew Hospital.
• Endowed bed in the Hebrew Home for the Aged.
• Maintenance of a playground in High street, Baltimore.
• Manual training school for the Hebrew Orphan Asylum.
• Synagogue in Lakewood, N. J.
• Scholarship at the University of Maryland.
• Two scholarships in the National Farm School.
• Endowed bed in the Nursery and Child’s Hospital.
• Endowed Maccabean Settlement House.
Mrs. Frank spent a part of the year, for many years, at Lakewood, N. J., and an account of her influence on the Jewish life of that place will give an impression of the force of her personality, and of the strength of her Jewish feeling. When she began visiting Lakewood, it had no synagogue, no organized Jewish life. Characteristically she seized the central weakness of the situation, and built the synagogue herself. She then engaged a rabbi, and out of this beginning came an organized Jewish life, centering in the synagogue, which is now able to engage a student of the Jewish Theological Seminary to come thither every week and conduct the service and the Sabbath School.
It is said that she gave away the entire estate of her husband shortly after she came into possession of it, leaving her with no means outside of her income from the trust fund created by her father; and this income was often anticipated for charitable purposes, so that her own needs had to wait on future receipts of income. The invalid allowed the needs of others to take preference over her own.
A visit to Mrs. Frank did not mean going into a sick chamber, to enter the world of the shut-in. On the contrary, it meant to meet one who was well informed as to what was going-on, and who could discuss movements and policies intelligently, shrewdly and even wittily. She kept abreast of affairs well enough to hold her own with the many young friends who came to exchange views with her, and who found her modern and progressive, totally without the limitation of interest and outlook that so often is the accompaniment of growing age. Mrs. Frank had a grounded belief in Judaism that was as comforting as it was unshakable. She had a warm spot for the old ceremonies and prayers of Israel, and spoke of them with love and reverence, though she could be critical enough when they were presented in a spirit of mere partisanship. Her purpose in life may be summed up in the few words: The determination to devote all the powers of heart and mind and purse to relieve the distress of others. To quote Dr. Schechter:
Her memory will indeed be cherished by all who knew her, and become a blessing for all who will take her life and the self- sacrifice which she made as a model for their life. Mrs. Frank died in New York on November 22, 1913, and was buried in the Har Sinai Cemetery, Baltimore, November 24, next to her beloved partner in life. She left no children; a brother, Albert W. Rayner, and a sister, Mrs. Joseph L. Strauss, survive her.
[Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, Issue 22, p.213-18]
She was educated privately, first at Streeter’s school on Charles Street in Baltimore, and afterwards at a school in Catonsville. The influences of her home life directed her mind to communal and religious affairs, which engaged her attention throughout her life. Her father was deeply interested in the religious and charitable progress of the community. He was one of the incorporators and first president of the Hebrew Benevolent Society of Baltimore. He gave the ground and building for the original Hebrew Orphan Asylum of that city, and was at one time its treasurer; he was incorporator and for many years president of the Har Sinai Temple, the first Reform synagogue in Baltimore. The eager young woman early became imbued with a strong religious feeling, which strengthened with the years, and she learned, too, to look upon the poor, the unhappy, and the restricted with a sympathy that was perhaps her most striking characteristic.
On December 16, 1869, she married Dr. Samuel Leon Frank, a young physician of broad interests, and like herself deeply concerned with Jewish affairs, but a shadow passed over their lives after a few years when Mrs. Frank’s health became impaired. In 1878 the couple went abroad with a number of Baltimore friends, partly to consult specialists in regard to her health, and the trip was filled with happy incidents. When she returned, it was to become an invalid and a sufferer for the rest of her life.
A period of nearly four decades of invalidism and pain would produce at best a blank of life and history for most persons; for Mrs. Frank these years became filled with interests of all kinds, with large things done for the city or state or for the welfare of Judaism, with a sympathetic attempt to reach the needy, whether that need was for education, amusement, raiment, or bread, with warm friendships and keen appreciation of her friends* achievements, which she followed with such happy ardor and so much good human feeling. It was a revelation to many who met her for the first time, or only occasionally, to discover in the invalid a person completely alive to and fully informed on private and public affairs, and the doings great and small in the community.
The freshness of her interests never slackened. Almost to the very last moment she was eager to examine and weigh any new project placed before her, and her openness of mind was matched by her keenness of perception. She was a woman of strong mental traits, quick to discern, wise in judgment, definite in desires, direct in statement. Had her health remained unimpaired, this sketch would have been of one who had left the mark of a vivid personality in many directions on the larger Jewish affairs.
Mrs. Frank’s mind remained young and supple even in advancing years. She not only welcomed the new, but grasped its meaning quickly, and allied herself promptly on the side of progress. Thus in spite of her numerous private and personal charities which she maintained to the last, she was an enthusiastic supporter of the Federated Jewish Charities of Baltimore, and when it was formed, sought to make her subscription as large as any that was obtained. She believed in, urged and supported organization, though she never thought of confining her gifts in this one channel.
As illustrating the quickness of her perceptions, her relations to the Daughters in Israel may be cited. When in 1890 an organization that had as its principal object the personal service of Jewish women in the interest of their less fortunate sisters was suggested, she took up the plan with enthusiasm, and when the Daughters in Israel was finally formed, she became its guardian angel, and maintained her unflagging interest and enthusiasm in the organization and in its work. She herself sent out the call for the first meeting, and her father suggested the name of the new organization, and its motto, “ Love thy neighbor as thyself.” The plan of the work was to form bands of ten for personal service, an idea that now after the lapse of nearly a quarter of a century has become the basis of a great movement. Before the organization of the Daughters in Israel, she had supported the Frank Sabbath School, which is still one of the cherished activities of that association. When this organization undertook to conduct a Working Girls* Home, the first of the kind for Jewish girls in the country, it was Mrs. Frank who supplied $5500 out of the $10,000 necessary to buy the building, and after the death of Dr. Frank, in 1906, it received her further gift of $10,000. This sum was later used to help to build the fine addition to the Home, at the dedication of which Mrs. Frank made one of her rare appearances in public. Her constant care and attention, extending in this case over a period of nearly twenty-five years, demonstrate how constant and loyal she remained through the changing years, in spite of the fresh demands uponher, and the new problems and causes in which she became interested.
She did not limit her bounty by any narrow principle of distribution. On the contrary, though her early religious influence had been along Reform lines, she became no exclusive partisan even of her own principles. As she once remarked to President Schechter, “ There is no time or even real opportunity for quarreling, especially now, when we have to resist a whole world.”
She contributed a scholarship annually to the Jewish Theological Seminary of America for many years, and to the Hebrew Union College, the William S. Rayner scholarship, and after the death of her husband, the Dr. Samuel Leon Frank scholarship also ; both of which she afterwards endowed with the sum of $15,000. The Johns Hopkins University also received a fellowship, and “ her name heads the list of those who donated for the establishment of a permanent fund for the Jewish Chautauqua.”
After the death of Dr. Frank, she came into a considerable inheritance from his estate, and soon organizations and institutions began to feel the benefit from the new fund at her disposal, her means having theretofore consisted of the income of the estate left in trust for her by her father. Some of her gifts were :
• The Samuel Leon Frank Hospital.
• Rayner Frank Loan Fund to the Hebrew Benevolent Society.
• A similar fund to a society in Lakewood, N. J.
• The Home of her parents (furnished) to the Instructive Visiting Nurses’ Association.
• Endowed bed for sick nurses in the Hebrew Hospital.
• Endowed bed in the Hebrew Home for the Aged.
• Maintenance of a playground in High street, Baltimore.
• Manual training school for the Hebrew Orphan Asylum.
• Synagogue in Lakewood, N. J.
• Scholarship at the University of Maryland.
• Two scholarships in the National Farm School.
• Endowed bed in the Nursery and Child’s Hospital.
• Endowed Maccabean Settlement House.
Mrs. Frank spent a part of the year, for many years, at Lakewood, N. J., and an account of her influence on the Jewish life of that place will give an impression of the force of her personality, and of the strength of her Jewish feeling. When she began visiting Lakewood, it had no synagogue, no organized Jewish life. Characteristically she seized the central weakness of the situation, and built the synagogue herself. She then engaged a rabbi, and out of this beginning came an organized Jewish life, centering in the synagogue, which is now able to engage a student of the Jewish Theological Seminary to come thither every week and conduct the service and the Sabbath School.
It is said that she gave away the entire estate of her husband shortly after she came into possession of it, leaving her with no means outside of her income from the trust fund created by her father; and this income was often anticipated for charitable purposes, so that her own needs had to wait on future receipts of income. The invalid allowed the needs of others to take preference over her own.
A visit to Mrs. Frank did not mean going into a sick chamber, to enter the world of the shut-in. On the contrary, it meant to meet one who was well informed as to what was going-on, and who could discuss movements and policies intelligently, shrewdly and even wittily. She kept abreast of affairs well enough to hold her own with the many young friends who came to exchange views with her, and who found her modern and progressive, totally without the limitation of interest and outlook that so often is the accompaniment of growing age. Mrs. Frank had a grounded belief in Judaism that was as comforting as it was unshakable. She had a warm spot for the old ceremonies and prayers of Israel, and spoke of them with love and reverence, though she could be critical enough when they were presented in a spirit of mere partisanship. Her purpose in life may be summed up in the few words: The determination to devote all the powers of heart and mind and purse to relieve the distress of others. To quote Dr. Schechter:
Her memory will indeed be cherished by all who knew her, and become a blessing for all who will take her life and the self- sacrifice which she made as a model for their life. Mrs. Frank died in New York on November 22, 1913, and was buried in the Har Sinai Cemetery, Baltimore, November 24, next to her beloved partner in life. She left no children; a brother, Albert W. Rayner, and a sister, Mrs. Joseph L. Strauss, survive her.
[Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, Issue 22, p.213-18]
Bertha Rayner Frank was born in the city of Baltimore on July 16, 1847. She was the daughter of the late William S. and Amalie Rayner, and the eldest of five children, two of whom, George W. and the Hon. Isidor Rayner, who at the time of his death was United States Senator from Maryland, pre-deceased her.
She was educated privately, first at Streeter’s school on Charles Street in Baltimore, and afterwards at a school in Catonsville. The influences of her home life directed her mind to communal and religious affairs, which engaged her attention throughout her life. Her father was deeply interested in the religious and charitable progress of the community. He was one of the incorporators and first president of the Hebrew Benevolent Society of Baltimore. He gave the ground and building for the original Hebrew Orphan Asylum of that city, and was at one time its treasurer; he was incorporator and for many years president of the Har Sinai Temple, the first Reform synagogue in Baltimore. The eager young woman early became imbued with a strong religious feeling, which strengthened with the years, and she learned, too, to look upon the poor, the unhappy, and the restricted with a sympathy that was perhaps her most striking characteristic.
On December 16, 1869, she married Dr. Samuel Leon Frank, a young physician of broad interests, and like herself deeply concerned with Jewish affairs, but a shadow passed over their lives after a few years when Mrs. Frank’s health became impaired. In 1878 the couple went abroad with a number of Baltimore friends, partly to consult specialists in regard to her health, and the trip was filled with happy incidents. When she returned, it was to become an invalid and a sufferer for the rest of her life.
A period of nearly four decades of invalidism and pain would produce at best a blank of life and history for most persons; for Mrs. Frank these years became filled with interests of all kinds, with large things done for the city or state or for the welfare of Judaism, with a sympathetic attempt to reach the needy, whether that need was for education, amusement, raiment, or bread, with warm friendships and keen appreciation of her friends* achievements, which she followed with such happy ardor and so much good human feeling. It was a revelation to many who met her for the first time, or only occasionally, to discover in the invalid a person completely alive to and fully informed on private and public affairs, and the doings great and small in the community.
The freshness of her interests never slackened. Almost to the very last moment she was eager to examine and weigh any new project placed before her, and her openness of mind was matched by her keenness of perception. She was a woman of strong mental traits, quick to discern, wise in judgment, definite in desires, direct in statement. Had her health remained unimpaired, this sketch would have been of one who had left the mark of a vivid personality in many directions on the larger Jewish affairs.
Mrs. Frank’s mind remained young and supple even in advancing years. She not only welcomed the new, but grasped its meaning quickly, and allied herself promptly on the side of progress. Thus in spite of her numerous private and personal charities which she maintained to the last, she was an enthusiastic supporter of the Federated Jewish Charities of Baltimore, and when it was formed, sought to make her subscription as large as any that was obtained. She believed in, urged and supported organization, though she never thought of confining her gifts in this one channel.
As illustrating the quickness of her perceptions, her relations to the Daughters in Israel may be cited. When in 1890 an organization that had as its principal object the personal service of Jewish women in the interest of their less fortunate sisters was suggested, she took up the plan with enthusiasm, and when the Daughters in Israel was finally formed, she became its guardian angel, and maintained her unflagging interest and enthusiasm in the organization and in its work. She herself sent out the call for the first meeting, and her father suggested the name of the new organization, and its motto, “ Love thy neighbor as thyself.” The plan of the work was to form bands of ten for personal service, an idea that now after the lapse of nearly a quarter of a century has become the basis of a great movement. Before the organization of the Daughters in Israel, she had supported the Frank Sabbath School, which is still one of the cherished activities of that association. When this organization undertook to conduct a Working Girls* Home, the first of the kind for Jewish girls in the country, it was Mrs. Frank who supplied $5500 out of the $10,000 necessary to buy the building, and after the death of Dr. Frank, in 1906, it received her further gift of $10,000. This sum was later used to help to build the fine addition to the Home, at the dedication of which Mrs. Frank made one of her rare appearances in public. Her constant care and attention, extending in this case over a period of nearly twenty-five years, demonstrate how constant and loyal she remained through the changing years, in spite of the fresh demands uponher, and the new problems and causes in which she became interested.
She did not limit her bounty by any narrow principle of distribution. On the contrary, though her early religious influence had been along Reform lines, she became no exclusive partisan even of her own principles. As she once remarked to President Schechter, “ There is no time or even real opportunity for quarreling, especially now, when we have to resist a whole world.”
She contributed a scholarship annually to the Jewish Theological Seminary of America for many years, and to the Hebrew Union College, the William S. Rayner scholarship, and after the death of her husband, the Dr. Samuel Leon Frank scholarship also ; both of which she afterwards endowed with the sum of $15,000. The Johns Hopkins University also received a fellowship, and “ her name heads the list of those who donated for the establishment of a permanent fund for the Jewish Chautauqua.”
After the death of Dr. Frank, she came into a considerable inheritance from his estate, and soon organizations and institutions began to feel the benefit from the new fund at her disposal, her means having theretofore consisted of the income of the estate left in trust for her by her father. Some of her gifts were :
• The Samuel Leon Frank Hospital.
• Rayner Frank Loan Fund to the Hebrew Benevolent Society.
• A similar fund to a society in Lakewood, N. J.
• The Home of her parents (furnished) to the Instructive Visiting Nurses’ Association.
• Endowed bed for sick nurses in the Hebrew Hospital.
• Endowed bed in the Hebrew Home for the Aged.
• Maintenance of a playground in High street, Baltimore.
• Manual training school for the Hebrew Orphan Asylum.
• Synagogue in Lakewood, N. J.
• Scholarship at the University of Maryland.
• Two scholarships in the National Farm School.
• Endowed bed in the Nursery and Child’s Hospital.
• Endowed Maccabean Settlement House.
Mrs. Frank spent a part of the year, for many years, at Lakewood, N. J., and an account of her influence on the Jewish life of that place will give an impression of the force of her personality, and of the strength of her Jewish feeling. When she began visiting Lakewood, it had no synagogue, no organized Jewish life. Characteristically she seized the central weakness of the situation, and built the synagogue herself. She then engaged a rabbi, and out of this beginning came an organized Jewish life, centering in the synagogue, which is now able to engage a student of the Jewish Theological Seminary to come thither every week and conduct the service and the Sabbath School.
It is said that she gave away the entire estate of her husband shortly after she came into possession of it, leaving her with no means outside of her income from the trust fund created by her father; and this income was often anticipated for charitable purposes, so that her own needs had to wait on future receipts of income. The invalid allowed the needs of others to take preference over her own.
A visit to Mrs. Frank did not mean going into a sick chamber, to enter the world of the shut-in. On the contrary, it meant to meet one who was well informed as to what was going-on, and who could discuss movements and policies intelligently, shrewdly and even wittily. She kept abreast of affairs well enough to hold her own with the many young friends who came to exchange views with her, and who found her modern and progressive, totally without the limitation of interest and outlook that so often is the accompaniment of growing age. Mrs. Frank had a grounded belief in Judaism that was as comforting as it was unshakable. She had a warm spot for the old ceremonies and prayers of Israel, and spoke of them with love and reverence, though she could be critical enough when they were presented in a spirit of mere partisanship. Her purpose in life may be summed up in the few words: The determination to devote all the powers of heart and mind and purse to relieve the distress of others. To quote Dr. Schechter:
Her memory will indeed be cherished by all who knew her, and become a blessing for all who will take her life and the self- sacrifice which she made as a model for their life. Mrs. Frank died in New York on November 22, 1913, and was buried in the Har Sinai Cemetery, Baltimore, November 24, next to her beloved partner in life. She left no children; a brother, Albert W. Rayner, and a sister, Mrs. Joseph L. Strauss, survive her.
[Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, Issue 22, p.213-18]
She was educated privately, first at Streeter’s school on Charles Street in Baltimore, and afterwards at a school in Catonsville. The influences of her home life directed her mind to communal and religious affairs, which engaged her attention throughout her life. Her father was deeply interested in the religious and charitable progress of the community. He was one of the incorporators and first president of the Hebrew Benevolent Society of Baltimore. He gave the ground and building for the original Hebrew Orphan Asylum of that city, and was at one time its treasurer; he was incorporator and for many years president of the Har Sinai Temple, the first Reform synagogue in Baltimore. The eager young woman early became imbued with a strong religious feeling, which strengthened with the years, and she learned, too, to look upon the poor, the unhappy, and the restricted with a sympathy that was perhaps her most striking characteristic.
On December 16, 1869, she married Dr. Samuel Leon Frank, a young physician of broad interests, and like herself deeply concerned with Jewish affairs, but a shadow passed over their lives after a few years when Mrs. Frank’s health became impaired. In 1878 the couple went abroad with a number of Baltimore friends, partly to consult specialists in regard to her health, and the trip was filled with happy incidents. When she returned, it was to become an invalid and a sufferer for the rest of her life.
A period of nearly four decades of invalidism and pain would produce at best a blank of life and history for most persons; for Mrs. Frank these years became filled with interests of all kinds, with large things done for the city or state or for the welfare of Judaism, with a sympathetic attempt to reach the needy, whether that need was for education, amusement, raiment, or bread, with warm friendships and keen appreciation of her friends* achievements, which she followed with such happy ardor and so much good human feeling. It was a revelation to many who met her for the first time, or only occasionally, to discover in the invalid a person completely alive to and fully informed on private and public affairs, and the doings great and small in the community.
The freshness of her interests never slackened. Almost to the very last moment she was eager to examine and weigh any new project placed before her, and her openness of mind was matched by her keenness of perception. She was a woman of strong mental traits, quick to discern, wise in judgment, definite in desires, direct in statement. Had her health remained unimpaired, this sketch would have been of one who had left the mark of a vivid personality in many directions on the larger Jewish affairs.
Mrs. Frank’s mind remained young and supple even in advancing years. She not only welcomed the new, but grasped its meaning quickly, and allied herself promptly on the side of progress. Thus in spite of her numerous private and personal charities which she maintained to the last, she was an enthusiastic supporter of the Federated Jewish Charities of Baltimore, and when it was formed, sought to make her subscription as large as any that was obtained. She believed in, urged and supported organization, though she never thought of confining her gifts in this one channel.
As illustrating the quickness of her perceptions, her relations to the Daughters in Israel may be cited. When in 1890 an organization that had as its principal object the personal service of Jewish women in the interest of their less fortunate sisters was suggested, she took up the plan with enthusiasm, and when the Daughters in Israel was finally formed, she became its guardian angel, and maintained her unflagging interest and enthusiasm in the organization and in its work. She herself sent out the call for the first meeting, and her father suggested the name of the new organization, and its motto, “ Love thy neighbor as thyself.” The plan of the work was to form bands of ten for personal service, an idea that now after the lapse of nearly a quarter of a century has become the basis of a great movement. Before the organization of the Daughters in Israel, she had supported the Frank Sabbath School, which is still one of the cherished activities of that association. When this organization undertook to conduct a Working Girls* Home, the first of the kind for Jewish girls in the country, it was Mrs. Frank who supplied $5500 out of the $10,000 necessary to buy the building, and after the death of Dr. Frank, in 1906, it received her further gift of $10,000. This sum was later used to help to build the fine addition to the Home, at the dedication of which Mrs. Frank made one of her rare appearances in public. Her constant care and attention, extending in this case over a period of nearly twenty-five years, demonstrate how constant and loyal she remained through the changing years, in spite of the fresh demands uponher, and the new problems and causes in which she became interested.
She did not limit her bounty by any narrow principle of distribution. On the contrary, though her early religious influence had been along Reform lines, she became no exclusive partisan even of her own principles. As she once remarked to President Schechter, “ There is no time or even real opportunity for quarreling, especially now, when we have to resist a whole world.”
She contributed a scholarship annually to the Jewish Theological Seminary of America for many years, and to the Hebrew Union College, the William S. Rayner scholarship, and after the death of her husband, the Dr. Samuel Leon Frank scholarship also ; both of which she afterwards endowed with the sum of $15,000. The Johns Hopkins University also received a fellowship, and “ her name heads the list of those who donated for the establishment of a permanent fund for the Jewish Chautauqua.”
After the death of Dr. Frank, she came into a considerable inheritance from his estate, and soon organizations and institutions began to feel the benefit from the new fund at her disposal, her means having theretofore consisted of the income of the estate left in trust for her by her father. Some of her gifts were :
• The Samuel Leon Frank Hospital.
• Rayner Frank Loan Fund to the Hebrew Benevolent Society.
• A similar fund to a society in Lakewood, N. J.
• The Home of her parents (furnished) to the Instructive Visiting Nurses’ Association.
• Endowed bed for sick nurses in the Hebrew Hospital.
• Endowed bed in the Hebrew Home for the Aged.
• Maintenance of a playground in High street, Baltimore.
• Manual training school for the Hebrew Orphan Asylum.
• Synagogue in Lakewood, N. J.
• Scholarship at the University of Maryland.
• Two scholarships in the National Farm School.
• Endowed bed in the Nursery and Child’s Hospital.
• Endowed Maccabean Settlement House.
Mrs. Frank spent a part of the year, for many years, at Lakewood, N. J., and an account of her influence on the Jewish life of that place will give an impression of the force of her personality, and of the strength of her Jewish feeling. When she began visiting Lakewood, it had no synagogue, no organized Jewish life. Characteristically she seized the central weakness of the situation, and built the synagogue herself. She then engaged a rabbi, and out of this beginning came an organized Jewish life, centering in the synagogue, which is now able to engage a student of the Jewish Theological Seminary to come thither every week and conduct the service and the Sabbath School.
It is said that she gave away the entire estate of her husband shortly after she came into possession of it, leaving her with no means outside of her income from the trust fund created by her father; and this income was often anticipated for charitable purposes, so that her own needs had to wait on future receipts of income. The invalid allowed the needs of others to take preference over her own.
A visit to Mrs. Frank did not mean going into a sick chamber, to enter the world of the shut-in. On the contrary, it meant to meet one who was well informed as to what was going-on, and who could discuss movements and policies intelligently, shrewdly and even wittily. She kept abreast of affairs well enough to hold her own with the many young friends who came to exchange views with her, and who found her modern and progressive, totally without the limitation of interest and outlook that so often is the accompaniment of growing age. Mrs. Frank had a grounded belief in Judaism that was as comforting as it was unshakable. She had a warm spot for the old ceremonies and prayers of Israel, and spoke of them with love and reverence, though she could be critical enough when they were presented in a spirit of mere partisanship. Her purpose in life may be summed up in the few words: The determination to devote all the powers of heart and mind and purse to relieve the distress of others. To quote Dr. Schechter:
Her memory will indeed be cherished by all who knew her, and become a blessing for all who will take her life and the self- sacrifice which she made as a model for their life. Mrs. Frank died in New York on November 22, 1913, and was buried in the Har Sinai Cemetery, Baltimore, November 24, next to her beloved partner in life. She left no children; a brother, Albert W. Rayner, and a sister, Mrs. Joseph L. Strauss, survive her.
[Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, Issue 22, p.213-18]
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