(San Francisco Examiner, Sunday, Dec. 19th, 1915)

FRANK L. UNGER, S. F. PRINCE OF BOHEMIANS SUCCUMBS

Man Who Helped the Helpless and Made All Happy Is Taken by Death

BY EDWARD H. HAMIL TON There died in calm yesterday at the Adler sanitarium,

one of the gentlest gentlemen that our western world has ever known-Frank L. Unger.

It is a long, long day since Unger brought into the Bohemian Club one of his wandering friends - a strange figure with long, untended hair; a worn and greased coat of green velveteen; a troubled, yearning look in his un­usual eyes. They were a little inclined to turn the shoulder against him, even those Bohemians of that Bohemian time.

But Unger mothered him among them, and a few of the vagrant crew came to know a little of his mettle­to gE>t a touch of the man that pulsed behind the jacket.

INTRODUCTION OF STEVENSON This unusual vagrant figure that Unger introduced

developed as Robert Louis Stevenson-to me the one man since the world began who has thoroughly mastered our stubborn English prose.

That was-characteristic of Unger-he mothered men -in a small and negligible sense. I remember when I came from Oakland a gangling and over-bashful boy, and stood to make or lose my place among those same critical Bohemians of the older days. Unger sat just under the platform to lead any possible applause-to rouse a feeling when the sentences fell down.

I have seen him do that service a hundred times­always eliminating self, always working to give some chap who thought he had a light within him a chance to show it outside the bushel.

In the days when I first knew him he had one of the sweetest singing voices that I have ever heard. He was part of the first "Pinafore" that we knew in California. It was said among mothers at that time that he was a handsome, fascinating, "dangerous" man. But always he was helping somebody else to fame or happiness.

CIRCLES THE WORLD

Long ago he and Harry Gillig became chums. They circled the world together singing songs, playing on soft­speaking instruments, their feet throbbing in the dance. They knew kings and princes, they played the high stakes of pleasure-but always Frank Unger extended the help­ing hand. I wonder how many a man who now is great got the impulse from Unger that he never inother fashion could have known.

In the days of the Comstocks he was clerk of a stock board when William Barton "called." He wedded and his daughter, Gladys Unger, is one of the playwrights of the world. He know in every city of this earth the women of the wonder eyes-the men of the happy hearts. Book collectors will pay more and more as the years go on for the unique illuminations that he made of the selected texts. He will be missed in Paris, London, Honolulu, Vienna, New York, as he will be missed here-and how he made them listen at Prescott, Phcenix and Tucson.

OLD FRIENDS LOY AL

They tell me he soon would have been 67 in the number of his years. Raphrel Weill, that friend of the friendless many; Harry Francis, the most faithful of friends; Barbour Lathrop, who hides his kindness behind a cynical loquacity-these and others saw to it that the later years of this world-loved man-this chap to whom "Towsee Mongelay" was written and dedicated-went out to his old chums, Gillig, Nagle, Lathrop, O'Connell and the rest in comfort and with little pain.

To him more than to any man I have known in recent years there fits that immortal sentence, "There was, there is, no nobler, kindlier, manlier man.''

(San Francisco Chronicle, Tuesday, Dec. 21st, 1915)

BOHEMIANS PAY LAST TRIBUTE OF LOVE TO KINDLY FRANK UNGER

Justice Henry A. Melvin Speaks for the " Old Guard" the Final Words of Eulogy and Affection Frank Unger, light-hearted voyageur, was sent away

yesterday on his last journey. His friends were there to see him go-the "old

guard" of the Bohemian Club, the younger men of the Family and the great host of other friends that knew him and his gracious way at many gatherings over many years. They went down to the last dock, as it were, to wave their final farewells to a comrade and friend.

Numbered among those who came to say their part­ings and to wish him well on this last adventure were many of the men and women most distinguished in the life of this city for which he, a globe-trotter and a connoisseur of cities, cherished a sincere and abundant affection. Supreme Justice Henry A. Melvin was the "sire." The honorary pallbearers, from diversified walks of life, were representative in every sense of character of those that filled the chapel. They inclnded Raphrel Weill, Seth Mann, M. H. de Young, Edward M. Greenway, Frank L. Mathieu, Haig Patigan, Edward M. Benjamin, Bar­bour Lathrop, Frank P. Deering, Harry Francis, Edgar

Peixotto, Hugh Burke, Dr. Edward Robeson Taylor, John Landers, Dr. J. Wilson Shiels, Thomas Conroy, Jeremiah Lynch, Dr. Frank K. Ainsworth, William Spencer Wright and Frank C. Hatch.

TOWSEE MONGALA Y

The song that Frank Unger wrote and that sang its way around the world, ''Towsee Mongalay, '' was sung to him, with the Bohemian "Old Guard" around the casket and the voices lifted true and clear by the Bohemian quartet. As the casket passed from the chapel, a group of Hawaiians waiting on the sidewalk with their guitars and ukuleles, struck up "Aloha Oe," He was their friend, too-known along the beach at Waikiki quite as well as amid the purlieus of Bohemia at Post and Taylor streets.

Justice Melvin's final word was stirringly expressive of the sentiments of those present. He said in part:

"Ask Frank Unger's club mates, who wear the frost of years upon their temple; ask the younger generation of

Bohemia, those virile, splendid fellows; ask the grand­mothers for whom his sweet, old-fashioned courtesy brought dear memories of departed youth; ask the chil­dren-he was "Uncle Frank" or "Uncle Towsee Mong­alay" to scores of them- ask anyone who knew him to name the noblest trait of this gentlest gentleman. With one voice they would say, "Kindliness."

LOVED THE GENTLE THINGS

''He loved the gentle things of earth and they loved him. If he avoided some of the harsher things that other men delight to fight and conquer, who shall blame him? Who chides the velvet-winged vanessa that she is not a hawk, or a mountain pool that is not a tumultuous sea?

''He came from the sturdy stock of the Middle West, but California wove her spell about him in his boyhood, and though he traversed many lands and sailed amid the palm-clad isles of many seas, the sunset splendor of the Golden Gate was always the noblest vision in his memory and the sky line of San Francisco's hills always spelled 'home.'

"As a boy he knew the mountains and the sturdy men who searched for gold, but the city's lights were glowing, and hither he came. The business life held him for a time, but the clink of coin made no music for his ears. He loved the song from the soul sincere, the picture that held more of the artist's self than of 'the landscape. Ned Hamilton has told you how he led the modest Stevenson into Bohemia and made him feel at home. He might have added scores to the list of wanderers welcomed and charmed by the art of our kindly and sincere friend.

HIS MANY FRIENDS "His glorious voice, his unique gift as an illustrator,

his never-failing geniality, drew to him friends whose souls thrilled to the melody of his. · Five times good friends who coveted his companship took him as an hon­ored guest on world-encircling tours. He and the glorious Harry Gillig floated down Cleopatra's Nile, sang their songs in Far Cathay, carolled Bohemian ditties to the applause of Venetians in carnival time and learned from laughing lips the liquid, languorous loveliness of the music of the Hawaiians. He told me once that he loved the Hawaiians more than all others met upon his journey­ings. He said: 'They are so simple, so friendly, so sincere.' They loved him, too, and their 'Aloha Oe' will follow him on his last journey today. Do you think that decades of toil resulting in a bank balance arid a chill lump where a heart should be could have compensated for those mad. glad days and those flower-scented, moonlit nights with Harry Gillig?

"In New York among the Lambs he found joy in the companionship of faithful friends. Val Heaton, Frank Hatch, Joe Grismer, Dave Warfield, Morton Smith, Dunbar Wright, James Clarence Harvey, Billy Wright and Clay Greene-these were his very brothers.

SAN FRANCISCO HIS HOME

"But home called, and finally he came back to us-to the friends of the d_ays when the purple wine of youth pulsed in his arteries, to Yale and Francis and De Young and Barton and Hamilton. Aye, and to that friend whose perfect devotion made peaceful his closing years of life. Upon the heart of Raphrel Weill, the President of the glorious republic of France, has placed a ribbon that im­mortalizes his unselfish Io-rn of the homeless. I am sure that when the bright angel came to take Frank Unger by the hand the spirit paused at Raphael's bedside to kiss that most honorable decoration.

"You know how they journeyed together around the world, adding new experiences to the memories of the years agone. Home they came, and here Frank passed his life helping and cheering the yearner for home, the shy lad with the song in his heart, the girl with story to paint upon the pulsating canvas. Once or twice beloved

Hawaii called with the tender songs of the moonlit youth, but home-always home to Bohemia-has he come.

ALL KINDLY WISHES

"Ned Hamilton has told you how 'Towsee Mongalay' was written for and dedicated to him. I once ai;;ked Frank the meaning of the words. He answered, 'Good luck and may you live a thousand years;' but, he added, 'Really they are untranslatable. They mean all the kindly, generous wishes in the world.'

·'Ah! His life was the true translation. The other night Frank Hatch left the Christmas feasting, wander­ed into the night to think of past days with Frank. His aimless steps took him to the St. Francis, and as he en­tered a distant orchestra was playing 'Towsee Mongalay.' And so through the years, the young and happy as they sway to that enchantment will remember him.

''To you, dear Cress and the others of his kin, I can truly say, we know your sorrow, for we were his broth­ers, too. We who loved him-young and old-give him to the great God without fear, for he loved his fellow men.

IN BOHEMIA'S GROVE

"He looked upon Bohemia's Grove with a poet's rev­erential admiration, and he joyed with childlike delight to garnish with artistic skill the camp where he abode.

''Gentle pilgrim, the flowers that you planted bloomed beside the pathways on many grassy slopes. The com­panions of your youth, and those who came with all their young hopes to walk beside, only in the later years-all love you alike. That boy Waldrop, beloved of the gods, plays our requiem as no stranger could. Perry of the golden voice and the others who had so large a place in your great heart will sing such music as none but com­rades can create.

"We who know the earthquake's giant menace and the fire's awful power do sneer at evanescent monuments of stone and brass. We would have no such memorials for you. The story of your gentle life shall live in Ster­ling's perfect lines until all the sons of earth shall have journeyed to the purple hills beyond the sunset. ''

TWO POEMS

Justice Melvin also recited Joaquin Miller's "Good-by, Old Friend:"

Yon yellow sun melts in the sea, A somber ship sweeps silently Past Alcatraz toward Orient skies, A mist is rising to the eyes. Goodby, old friend-good night, good night.

How stately tall your ship, how vast, With night nailed to your leaning mast, With mighty stars of hammered gold, And moon-wrought cordage manifold. Goodby, old friend-good nig ht, good night!

A poem written especially for the funeral by George Sterling was read by Seth Mann:

FRANK UNGER

Thou sleepest well! On all our troubled earth, Weary of war, what gentler heart could cease?

0 Savior! At the season of Thy birth Thou hast remembered that Thy gift is peace !

A voice is mute that had no word of hate, And one g one forth who shall not come again ­

A comrade true, a friend compassionate: Tender and· brave, a soul without a stain.

Jesus, whose word it was that save as we Become as little children, meek and mild,

W e shall not enter, turn Thy face and see: One waiteth at the door, a little child!

A letter written "To Frank" in alleogorical form by Clay M. Greene was read by Justice Melvin, as was also a poem by Andrew Younger Wood.

And Frank Unger went on his way, realizing, per­haps, as Charles Frohman said, that ''Death is the most beautiful adventure in life. ''