Frank Voelker, Jr.

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Frank Voelker, Jr.
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Born (1921-02-12)February 12, 1921
Lake Providence
East Carroll Parish
Louisiana, United States
Died Script error: The function "death_date_and_age" does not exist.
New Orleans, Louisiana
Resting place Lake Providence Cemetery
Alma mater Louisiana Tech University

Tulane University Law School

Harvard Law School
Occupation Attorney; Farmer; Politician
Political party Democratic
Spouse(s) Virginia Wilson Voelker (married 1947-2002, his death)
Children Mullady V. Crigler

Dr. Frank Voelker, III
David Ransdell Voelker (1953-2013)
Mary V. Clauss
Kitty V. Mattesky

George W. Voelker
Parent(s) Frank Voelker, Sr., and Isabella Ransdell Voelker
Relatives Grandfather Francis Xavier Ransdell
Great-uncle, U.S. Senator Joseph E. Ransdell

Frank Voelker, Jr. (February 12, 1921 – January 29, 2002),[1] from Lake Providence, Louisiana, was an attorney, chairman of the Louisiana Sovereignty Commission, and gubernatorial candidate.

Background

Voelker was the second of five children born to Isabel Ransdell and Frank Voelker, Sr., a Louisiana 6th Judicial District judge, both of Lake Providence.[2][better source needed] Isabel was the daughter of District Judge Francis Xavier Ransdell, who preceded Frank Voelker, Sr., on the court.[2][better source needed]

Frank Voelker, Jr., graduated from the Roman Catholic St. Patrick Parochial School in Lake Providence and then received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Louisiana Tech University in Ruston. In 1943, he graduated from Tulane University Law School in New Orleans.[2][better source needed]

From 1943 to 1946, he was a first lieutenant and a pilot in the United States Marine Corps during World War II. Among his assignments, he trained pilots at the Pensacola Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida. After military service, he engaged in 1946 and 1947 in further study of corporations and taxes at Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.[3] Voelker is mentioned in the book, All Aboard: Lucky in War, Lucky in Peace, Lucky in Love by James Gobold, a war buddy.[4]

Legal career

After his year at Harvard, Voelker launched his law practice in Lake Providence; his partners included W. B. Ragland, Jr., Charles Brackin, and James Carpenter Crigler, Sr. In 1950, he was appointed city attorney,[3] a position that he filled until Governor Jimmie Davis named him to the Louisiana Sovereignty Commission,[5] a since defunct agency which monitored civil rights activists and allegedcommunist infiltrators within the state, much as the Federal Bureau of Investigation had done under J. Edgar Hoover. The agency was modeled after the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, which functioned from 1956 to 1977. Critics of the commission claimed that it was created to defend racial segregation, which soon was brought to an end through federal intervention. W. Spencer Myrick, then a former state representative from Oak Grove in West Carroll Parish, was an investigator for the commission.[6] When Voelker left the commission, so did Myrick, who was elected in 1963 to the Louisiana State Senate.[7]

After his gubernatorial race, the Voelkers relocated to New Orleans, where he was a partner in the law firm McGlinchey Stafford. Active in his state and national bar associations, Voelker In 1995 was named Distinguished Attorney by the Louisiana Bar Foundation. He was a fellow of the American Bar Foundation.[3]

Gubernatorial race

In 1963, Voelker resigned from the Sovereignty Commission to run for governor in the Democratic primary election in which Davis was ineligible to seek a third nonconsecutive term. In his campaign, Voelker urged the establishment of a cost-of-living formula for state employees and public welfare recipients.[8] A few weeks after Voelker entered the race, his father died of a heart attack.[9]

Voelker ran considerable advertising, including television spots in his gubernatorial race.[10] However, he could not make inroads into the top tier of candidates and therefore withdrew from the race to become chairman of the campaign of former Governor Robert F. Kennon. When Kennon finished in fourth place in the primary held on December 7, 1963, just fifteen days after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Voelker supported another losing candidate, deLesseps Story Morrison, the former mayor of New Orleans who had led the primary balloting but then lost the runoff election to John McKeithen,[5] who then dispatched the Republican Charlton Lyons in the general election held on March 3, 1964.[11]

Personal life

In 1947, Voelker married Virginia Wilson (1921-2011), a native of Weston in Lewis County in northern West Virginia. They were married by a priest in Chatham, New Jersey. Virginia Voelker graduated from the College of Notre Dame of Maryland in Baltimore, Maryland, and then attended acting school in New York City. She established the Good Shepherd Early Childhood Development Center, an early elementary Montessori school in Lake Providence.[12]

The couple had six children, one of whom, David Ransdell Voelker, was a New Orleans entrepreneur and community leader.[13] The eldest, Mullady V. Crigler of Monroe married James C. Crigler, Jr., an attorney and the son of Frank Voelker's former law partner. The other Voelker children are Frank Voelker, III, a physician from Franklinton in Washington Parish who specializes in cardiovascular disease,[14] and Mary V. Clauss, Kitty V. Mattesky, and George W. Voelker, all of New Orleans.[12][15]

Voelker was affiliated with the veterans organizations, the American Legion and the Forty and Eight, the Farm Bureau, Rotary International, and the executive board of the Ouachita Council for the Boy Scouts of America. He was a member of the board of governors of the Council of State Governments. The Voelkers were members of St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Lake Providence prior to their move to New Orleans.[2][better source needed] Mrs. Voelker was a board member of the Arts Council of New Orleans and the Harper and the Mitchiner-Gittinger family foundations there.[12]

Death and legacy

Voelker died in New Orleans two weeks before his 81st birthday. He and his wife are interred at Lake Providence Cemetery.[1]

The Voelker Scholarship at Tulane Law School is awarded periodically to a student from North Louisiana who has demonstrated academic excellence and a commitment to the study of civil law.[16]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Minden Press, Minden, Louisiana, September 23, 1963, p. 16; Minden Herald, January 9, 1964, p. 15
  6. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ Ruston Daily Leader, Ruston, Louisiana, May 30, 1963, p. 1
  9. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. ↑ Minden Press, Minden, Louisiana, July 15, 1963, p. 7
  11. ↑ Louisiana Secretary of State, General election returns, March 3, 1964
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  13. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  15. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  16. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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