Francis Martin Madden

Part 1  - 1896-1919

No birth certificate has been found for Francis (Frank). According to a letter by cousin Mary, Frank was born at 1917 fifth Avenue.(1)   After his father's death when he was six and then his mother's when he was fifteen, Frank and his brothers Thomas and Charles (Carl) continued to live in the family home.  Their Aunt Mary Silbereisen Lynn moved in with her family and at times so did Aunt Lena Schramm.  Little is known about Frank's life before he left Michigan for California.

Frank attended Stanford University for approximately two years, returning to Michigan before the 1920 census was taken. He may have attended a university in Michigan as well, as he was listed as a student in the 1920 census but to date I do not have information supporting that fact.

The actual sequence of events of his young adult years is not known, but he did serve in the Student Army Training Corps, he did have tuberculosis and go to a special facility and he did attend Stanford.  It makes the most sense that he was sent to California because he had tuberculosis some of the best sanitariums were located in Belmont on the San Francisco Peninsula.  Most likely he improved with the climate change and ended up staying to attend Stanford University just a few miles south.

He was a mechanical engineering student living at 11 Salvatierra St, Stanford when he registered for the Great War Draft on 5 Jun 1918.(2)  Today Salvatierra Street that would have included #11 is called Salvatierra Walk and the building that Frank would have lived in doesn't appear to exist anymore.








Although I have not found any official school records to date, I did find Frank in the yearbook for the first quarter of 1919 as well as in the Student Training Corps records for Stanford.  See the next post.

1.  Family Bible of Thomas and Elizabeth Madden, copied by Mary Lynn Scramm  from the bible in the possession of Aunt Lena included in a letter to Carl Madden and family 8/6/1951.
2. Ancestry.com. World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 2005. Original data: United States, Selective Service System. World War I Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration. M1509, 4,582 rolls.