Archives West Finding Aid

Aaron Meier Frank was born in 1891 in Portland, Oregon. His grandfather Aaron Meier had founded the Portland department store Meier & Frank, and his father, Sigmund Frank, had become Meier's business partner and married Meier's daughter Fanny. Frank graduated from the University of Oregon Law School in 1913, and in 1914 began working for Meier & Frank. In 1930, when Aaron Meier's son Julius Meier was elected governor of Oregon, Frank assumed managerial responsibilities for the store; upon Julius Meier's death in 1937, Frank became the store's president. He retired in September 1964.

Frank married Ruth Rosenfeld (1893-1942) in 1916; the couple had three children, including Gerald W. "Gerry" Frank (1923-2022). Frank died in 1968.

Sources: Articles in the Oregonian, September 14, 1942, and November 30, 1968; vital records on Ancestry.com.

Gerald "Gerry" Wendell Frank was born in Portland, Oregon, in 1923. He attended Stanford University, where he enrolled in the Reserve Officer Training Corps. He was called to active duty in the U.S. Army in 1943, and served in the European theater during World War II. During his Army training in California, he studied engineering at Loyola University. After his discharge in 1945, he remained in England and attended Cambridge University, where he earned a bachelor's degree in economics and a master's degree in politics.

After graduating, he returned to Portland and worked at the family business, the Meier & Frank department store. He opened and managed the Meier & Frank store in Salem, Oregon, in 1955. After the sale of Meier & Frank in 1965, Frank became involved with Mark Hatfield's political career, eventually becoming the senator's chief of staff. In 1981, he opened a dessert shop in Salem called Gerry Frank's Konditorei. He was a longtime contributor to the Oregonian newspaper and also authored a guidebook to Oregon, entitled "Gerry Frank's Oregon."

Frank died in March 2022.

Sources: Obituary in the Oregonian, March 14, 2022; oral history interviews with Gerry Frank, SR 1002 and SR 1324, Oregon Historical Society Research Library.

The Jay W. Stevens Disaster Service Unit was a vehicle that Meier & Frank president Aaron M. Frank donated to the city of Portland, Oregon, in March 1939. The vehicle, named in honor of Portland Fire Marshal Jay W. Stevens, included over 1,200 pieces of equipment for use in emergencies, including bandages, resuscitators, portable generators, flood lights, and gas masks. It was used for relief operations for the Vanport Flood in 1948 and the Columbus Day Storm in 1962. The Jay W. Stevens Disaster Service Unit was officially retired in January 1972.

Sources: Articles in the Oregonian, 1939-1972.