Cousin Boies Penrose

picture from my own family album.


A lot of people get confused about who is who in my family and even who we are related to. We are not related to the Penrose's in Utah that are Mormans but we are related to Stephen B.L. Penrose, long time president of Whitman College in Washington State.




Now, the above picture is my cousin Boies, he was named after his & my uncle Boies who was a senator. My cousin was the son of my uncle Charles. Uncle Charles had 2 kids that lived, Boies & Sarah. Uncle Charles had a marriage that was arranged but was a good marriage, she was very, very, very rich. Her father was an Austrian banker.





I met my cousin Boies, only once. He came to our house and had a meeting with my father. He was much older then the picture above. My father who was dying of cancer, had a favor to ask of Boies. The favor was: will you take and raise my little girl. My cousin, Boies refused!!! I was standing right there, looking at his face when he told my father that he should kill me. My cousin said a few other choice words about my mother.



My father replied that Boies would never be welcomed in our home again. Boies had a chance to help me and my father but he refused. And to this day, I curse him and his family. I do not consider any of them my relatives. They are all cruel and mean hearted people.




And that is all I have to say about my cousin Boies.

Military Widows

I read an article in the paper the other day. It was about a military widow that had talked to President Obama when he was a senator. She talked to him about pension for military widows. You see, they don't get one. The article made it seem that Obama was not keeping a promise about doing something about this for military widows.



I have a true story about another senator who was approached by a military widow. She was a civil war widow and she went to her state senator asking for help to get military widow pension. This young senator fought hard for this woman and he won but it was just for this one woman. You would have thought that the senator would be elated over his victory but he wasn't.



His party, the republican party pulled him aside and told him never to do that again. He was not in office to help people. The young man took this hard, for he was a compassionate person and he had been taught to take care of widows and orphans. From that moment on whenever he would do something for "the little people" of america. He did it fast and quick with the promise that no one would find out that he helped them.


His name, Boies Penrose. He served as a U.S. Senator from 1897 - 1921. One of his favorite sayings "public office is the last refuge of a scoundral"



So, if someone says Obama is not keeping his promise, believe me, he has tried and Washington has shut him down just like in the 1890's. Some things never change.

The Francis Boies Penrose Story

I would like to introduce you to my Uncle Francis, he was born in Philadelphia, PA in the year 1867 the 5th son of my grandparents. My Uncle had a beautiful talent, he loved to draw. When my grandparents would go on trips without the kids, their nanny would have them write letters to my grandparents. Francis' letter and envelope would have drawings on them. His nickname was Friday.

My Uncle attended Harvard, two things happened to him there. The first was a fellow student with the nickname "piggy" fell in love with him and constantly sent him letters. My grandfather's advice was to burn every letter and discourage "piggy". My grandfather had plans for his brother Boies to become President of the United States and a scandal like this could hurt him. Uncle Francis did as his father said.

The second thing that happened was Francis became very sick, they called it a brain fever(this is what we call meningitis today and a blow to the head can also cause brain fever). He had to leave Harvard in his second year and went back home to Philly, he was eighteen. My grandfather, who was a doctor, had a cure for everything. A change in climate and hard work were his remedies, so when my Uncle Francis was strong enough he was sent to England. My grandmother, who had died in 1881, had family there.

By 1912 my Uncle was 45 years old. He had married and had children, the last one was a newborn. My Uncle got a job on a ship, its name was "Titanic". There were many people on this ship who knew my family well. The only person who did not take this trip was Rockefeller, he was booked to take it but didn't. The richest men in America had a meeting on the fateful night of the Titanic, even the head of the U.S. Treasury was there. They were going to take their money out of America because the government was going to start taxing individuals. A bomb went off in that room killing every person there.

My Uncle knew of the meeting and went to check on everyone. He saw water and dead bodies.

Everyone knows the rest of what happened except what Washington was doing. The bomb was to go off at a certain time, the President had arranged a meeting with my Uncle Boies (who was head of Naval Affairs) during this time. Uncle Boies gets the message the Titanic is in trouble and the President is not going to do anything. Uncle Boies leaves Washington (the President is pissed) and gets his yacht the "Betty". He is able to save my Uncle Francis and a few others.

Fast forward to Washington, my Uncle Francis and the other surviving employees are taken away where they are questioned. My Uncle is tortured, he keeps telling them what he knows and he keeps saying all he wants to do, is go home to his family. I do not know how long they kept him, he had to sign a paper to never talk about what he knew. At one time they were going to blame my Uncle for planting the bomb then they changed their minds. Note: a messenger was sent to Mrs. Astor to make sure that she never mention the meeting.

They released my Uncle Francis, who was tired, in shock and was mentally plus physically drained. He went home to England, when he arrived he discovered his whole family had been murdered even the baby. My Uncle had a complete nervous breakdown.

My family brought him home to Philly where they put him in a mental hospital. There were parts of the Penrose family that would tell people my Uncle was adopted and he was born in New Mexico, that is not true. They did this because people thought it was bad when a member of a family had to be in a mental hospital.

My father brought my Uncle to Colorado Springs in the late 1930's, my uncle's nurse (who had been on the Titanic and rescued also) took care of him till he died in 1947. Mary Marvin stayed on with my family and my mother appointed her to help Fairbanks and Berkey with the book about my Uncle Richard. This book never mentions the Titanic or the letters my Uncle Richard wrote concerning this incident. My dad had wanted them in the book, my mother did not.

My father made my Uncle Francis' life as pleasant as he could and if you look at the picture of him you can see a gentleness about him. So, that's the story about my Uncle from my father and what happened on the Titanic.

Uncle Boies

My Uncle was the most famous of all the Penrose's. He was a senator, all he really wanted to be was a mayor of his beloved Philadelphia but that was not to be.

In the 1930's a book was written about him, it was a favorite in women's
book clubs because it gave an inside look on Washington. I liked the book, in fact I have a copy of it. Another man wanted to do a book about my Uncle in the 1950's, he was a broadway producer, writer, pretty famous for the time. He came and talked to my father who was excited about the book. But, something happened and the book was never done, in fact I tried to find the guy. The last thing I found was around the late 1950's, someone tried to kill him. I think they succeeded because thats all I could discover. So much for the book.

So, I thought I would share about my Uncle, this is what he did the last year of his life in the senate. That year was 1921:
April - He wanted equality for blacks. he said that they should be equal to whites in hotels, cafes, restaurants, educational institutions and amusements. They fought him hard on this one.

June - He had gotten Mr Mellon in as head of Treasury and he was doing a bang up job, nineteen countries owed us money and Mr. Mellon had worked out a plan for them to pay it back.

My Uncle left Washington to go back to Philly, President Hoover had left my Uncle with no offices in Washington (I find this very odd because Hoover was a geologist like my Uncle Richard and a friend of my Uncle Richard's).

My Uncle helped with the election of the next Governor of Penn. (I think this was the reason he left Washington)

July - He called for disarmament of the U.S. (World War One had ended). My Uncle didn't believe in war. They fought him hard on this one too.

Sept - He installs a movie theatre in his Washington apartments

Oct - He is trying to get tax bills passed, the Soldiers Bonus bill thru and a corporation tax thru.

On Dec. 30, 1921 Uncle Richard stops by to see my Uncle in Washington. My Uncle is in perfect health, great mood and nothing is wrong. At one minute before midnite on Dec. 31st, 1921 my Uncle is dead.

The papers are full that he was sick, poor health blah, blah, blah. Lies, lies, lies. My Uncles Richard and Charles along with my father get together, they hire people to find out who killed my Uncle and who put the contract out on him.

My Uncle had many enemies, there was a senator who was going to be brought up on treason charges, my Uncle stood up for him and with him (he became his friend after that) but that is the way the Penrose's are, even if our enemies are falsely accused we will stand up and state the truth. But, there were two enemies my Uncle had, they were the Vare brothers (one of them was a senator). The Vare brothers were heavily connected with the mafia, Lucky Luciano was a close friend, the Vare boys owned one of the Philly newspapers and they were involved in what was called "the bloody fifth ward". You didn't have to go far to find out that they were the ones that put out the contract.

Why, my family didn't go to the government I'll never know. Maybe it's because of what they did to my Uncle Francis or maybe they felt there was someone higher up involved because the newspapers weren't printing the truth. No matter, they put out a contract on the hired gun and the man that hired him. For them justice was done.

My Uncle was a loving caring person, he had a great sense of humor. In his younger years he wrote plays and poetry, he even wrote a pamphlet for Barnum on elephants (Barnum passed out this pamphlet at his circus). He never married but he had a lot of mistresses. He loved America and he really loved the city of his birth, Philly. He was never involved with the mafia and he never took a bribe. He had a photogenic mind, he would read something and it stayed there, word for word. All the Penroses had this except me, I remember conversations word for word, I guess the gene said "lets skip the reading material and go for conversations instead" :)

So, there you have it my Uncle and the last year of his life. He was a very good man.