Frank Lucas Biography

A son was born 11 Jul 1905 in Beat 6 of Alabama to mother, Roxie Lucus, who was born in Alabama, and father, Ed Lucus, who was born in Alabama and worked as a miner. They called the boy George for a time, but soon he became known as Frank.

"I never saw my grandfather's family. I only recently found out he had so many brothers and stuff. We never heard about it when we were growing up. Everything that was stressed was about my grandmother's side of the family, the RICE side, Beulah, Mae, Wilma. They would all come visiting. But nobody ever visited from Frank's family." [*DWH]

He ran away from home and lied about his age to join the Army during WWI. The 16-year-old was stationed in Hawaii. (His military records still haven't been found. Also, his 1920 census record hasn't been found.)

On 22 May 1926, Frank LUCAS, age 21, married Verbal Marie RICE, age 18, in Marion, Williamson County, Illinois, by the Pastor of First Methodist Church. They had four children: daughter Patricia Mae born 12 Apr 1927 in Johnston City, IL; son Roger Jerome born 20 Jun 1929 in Maywood, IL; son Terry Bernard born 08 Feb 1932 in Melrose Park, IL; and daughter Janet Lee born 05 Aug 1939 in Oak Park, IL.

"An old story from when they were down in Johnston City working during the depression: He would bring home his pay for the week, turn it over to Verbal and she would give him a tiny allowance. He would go down to the pool halls. Johnston City was a big center of pool in those days. He would hustle pool and get some extra money that way." [*DWH]

"Not only was he good at pool, he was great in horseshoes. Those lawn dart things - he could hold them all in his hand, throw them, and get them into the bull's eye. When Terry and Ginny were into archery, he wasn't that impressed with it because he could just take it and shoot just as well it seemed, but he would shoot from the hip and do fine. So, I think he just had really good hand-eye coordination." [*DWH]

1930 Census shows Frank & Verbal living in Melrose Park, Cook County, with their first two young children. Frank works as a driver.

1936 Social Security application shows Frank lived at 7739 Monroe Street, Forest Park, Illinois. He worked at Barr & Collins at 7459 Franklin Street, Forest Park. He stated he was 31 years old, born 11 Jul 1905 in Garnsey, Alabama, to parents Ed Lucas and Roxie Davis Lucas.

1940 Census shows the family of six is now living in Forest Park, Cook County, Illinois. Frank is a truck driver.

Frank moved his family from Maywood out to the country, into a house they built on Robin Lane in West Chicago, DuPage County, Illinois, in June 1953.

"Most of the time he was real quiet. He had his favorite chair. He would read his newspaper. He would watch the Friday night fights. Always had his pipe. He would smoke cigars, but he would prefer a pipe. When my Dad would give him old cigars and stuff he had in his sales bag, my Grandfather would smoke them for a little while and then kind of jam them into the pipe and smoke it that way. Every one of the kids had to sit on his lap when they were little and get his pipe shoved in their mouth, it was a scummy thing." [*DWH]

"He had an old Studabacker, ugly but in immaculate condition until its rear window shaddered." [*DWH]

"He worked for Berwyn Lumber Company as a truck driver. Three or four times, I saw him drive home with his big huge orange lumber truck. Once in a while he would be delivering somewhere near the area and would stop by and all the kids would come out and look at the big huge flatbed semi." [*DWH]

"My grandfather and everybody built their houses. All three were built with wood from Berwyn Lumber Company. He bought ten acres from this MacIntosh guy who subdivided all the land for Northwoods. He bought the acres that were out on the prairie rather than in the treed woods and divided it up into four lots. The lots were 1 — 2 acres. He gave each one lot to Pat, one to Roger, and one to Terry for wedding presents. Because my grandfather was in the lumber business and Roger and Terry were carpenters, they built their own houses. I remember very little about my grandfather's house being built, but I remember a little about Roger's house being built, and of course our house. It was always the spooky basements flooded with mud and water. The kids weren't allowed to roam around the construction site but we were little bitty three year olds and stuff." [*DWH]

"The neatest feature on their land was a water hole, an underground spring, that came from across the road and then it eroded away a hole that was about 10x4 feet. They discovered it when building his house. A fox lived there. He killed the fox and stuck a willow branch in the ground there. The branch was only about 3 or 4 inches across, but the trunk grew to about 3 feet across. It became a gigantic tree. It was only about 100 feet from the house on the property line." [*DWH]

"My grandfather was the snake killer of the area when we were building the houses it was all prairie. So, I guess we would stick these houses in the paths of where the snakes would always go. Anytime you found a snake, you would call him up and he would play with it until he would finally kill it. On the Aurora-Elgin rail line that got turned into that Nature Prairie Path, it was kind of swampy. He had a German Short-hair Pointer dog that got into some sort of snake and my grandfather got it. He took the snake into Brookfield Zoo and had it identified. It turned out to be a cottonmouth water moccasin, and they couldn't figure out where it came from." [*DWH]

"When he retired, he got into show dogs. He had a lot of dogs. He had some German Short-hair Pointers, then he got into the Pugs, black and fawn colored. He started with black pug named Mollie. Hercules was a champion fawn pug. He had his pug dogs for a long time, ten years or so. He went around doing the dog shows. He really enjoyed that. He started becoming a nationally known breeder and shower of dogs. One time the Duke of Windsor (he gave up the throne for Mrs. Simpson) was looking for a black pug and the New York Kennel Club referred them to my grandfather. He was one of the few people who would breed black pugs, but he didn't have any black at the time. He had an oven down in the basement to cook for the dogs. He would travel all over the place showing the dogs. He had to pay his dues before he started winning shows and getting some recognition. He never hired any professional handlers, he did it himself." [*DWH]

"He did a lot of gardening. He had maybe a quarter to half acre garden. He would always be rototilling that and raising all the vegetables. He had 2 big apple trees, 3 or 4 crab apple trees, and one mulberry tree." [*DWH]

"My grandfather used to like to drink, so he always had a bottle hidden up in his closet, like he was hiding it from my grandmother. He liked Mogen David wine. On Thanksgiving, every kid had to sit on his lap and take a sip of wine and a take a puff from his pipe or cigar. The pipe was gross, crusted with dry spit or calcium. On Thanksgiving, when all the guys would traditionally go out "hunting," most of the time we just roamed around and never really got anything, then we would finish hunting and it would be cold and wet. Then we would go into Winfield to John's Buffet Tavern or the Hilltop Tavern, which was off of Marden Acres road between St. Charles Road and North Avenue, Route 64. It was a little, little bar across from the DuPage Auto Wreckers junkyard. The kids would get beer nuts and root beers and the guys would buy grandpa his drink. Then we would all go home and my grandmother would be mad at him, so he would just sit in his chair." [*DWH]

"I don't know if he really ran the roost or not, I think my grandmother did. She seemed to be the domineering one." [*DWH]

"He used to get free tobacco samples from my dad that were all dried out. He didn't care. If the sample was a cigar, he would cram the cigar into his pipe and smoke." [*DWH]

"I don't remember my grandfather ever raising his voice to any of the grandkids or swatting any of them. He was firm. If he told you to do something, you did it. He just had some way of making sure he was known, but he didn't yell or rant and rave. He was real good with the kids. I don't know why, but it seemed like every kid had his own nickname. My nickname that my grandfather called me was Hambone. He called my son, Daniel, Buckshot." [*DWH]

About 1973 or 1974 Frank and Verbal moved into a two-story house in town at 507 N. 5th Street, Oregon, Illinois. Around 1986 they moved to 119 W. Adams, Watseka, Illinois, closer to their son, Roger. Not long after, they were placed into separate nursing homes.

Frank Lucas died at 9:33 a.m. on 27 Dec 1990, in Iroquois Memorial Hospital of Watseka, Iroquois County, Illinois, due to heart failure as a consequence of pneumonia. At the time, he lived at North and 4th Street in the city of Danforth. Frank was buried in Daysville Cemetery in Nashua Township, Ogle County, Illinois, on 31 Dec 1990.

HASS Family History

Frank LUCAS

1905 - 1990