Patrick Henry (P.H.) Frank (1862 – 1950) arrived in the Philippines on board the vessel Colon in July 1898 as a member of the U.S. 23rd Infantry. A New Orleans Army private, he was assigned in Cavite, then moved to Manila. On May 17, 1899, aboard S.S. Leon, a former Spanish ship, he was sent to Jolo. He also fought the Muslims in Cotabato and Zamboanga. He was first listed in the Spanish-American War in Cuba but was instead sent to the islands; he arrived in 1898. His missions gave him the chance to appreciate the potential of the countryside. On July 6, 1902, he was discharged from service with an ‘excellent’ record.
As a businessman, P.H. was insightful. In Cotabato, he set up his first venture, the ‘Pool, Billiard and Restaurant.’ He later ventured into cattle business, but failed. After his first marriage, he moved to Zamboanga and opened ‘The First and Last Chance,’ a saloon named after the same enterprise in his hometown of Groveton, Texas; he renamed it Old Kentucky Bar, or OK Bar. He then engaged in the import from the U.S. of Moerlin Beer, advertising it as the ‘best in the Orient.’ In partnership with James H. Ankrom, also an American, he founded ‘Ankrom & Frank, Wholesale Liquors Dealers and General Importers and Exporters.’
In June 1906, P.H. opened a 2,530-acre tract of jungle fronting Davao Gulf, which he turned into a hemp plantation; the project, though, was short-lived. In January 1907, he returned to Zamboanga to buy the famous Red House building and took over the Elite Café, using its ground floor as the new home of ‘The First and Last Chance.’ The structure was owned by an American who was living in the U.S. because of a sick wife. To understand better the ins and outs of the business, he enrolled at the International Correspondence School.
Frank later expanded to power, hotel, and transport. Upon return to Zamboanga following a U.S. visit, he introduced the radio lamp, a lighting device using pressurized gasoline as fuel, and got a contract from the government to furnish the town’s street lamps. Later, he closed his saloon and focused on Mindanao Hotel, formerly Red Hotel. He founded the Zamboanga Transportation Co. and Mindanao Hotel Garage, later bought by Zamboanga Autobus Co., another Frank outfit formed in November 1917. The autobus firm was sold three years later to a Spanish trader.
Years later, Frank sold his interests in the Jolo Garage and Sulu Commercial Co. as a political statement. Along with some U.S. businessmen in Zamboanga, he backed gradual Filipinization and pressed for the separation of Mindanao and Sulu as a distinct territory under the U.S. control so as to induce development and draw investors to its shores.
With all his assets being sold, he moved to Manila where he opened in 1923 the Pagsanjan Manufacturing Co., which processed desiccated coconut, and manufactured efficient hemp stripping machine through his Universal Hemp Machine Co. To distribute the patented invention in Davao, he partnered with hemp planter William Gohn and opened Mindanao Sales and Services in 1929. That same year, he founded Patrick Henry Frank, Relatives & Associates (later Davao Light and Power Co.), which was registered on Oct. 1, 1929, chiefly to serve the business district of Davao. The enterprise was managed by his son, Sam Boone.
In 1932, Frank was given another chance to return to Mindanao. Count Shizmarov, a Russian navy officer who fled to the country after the Russian Revolution had contacts in Krupp, the German industrial giant. He convinced Frank to change his old generators in Jolo with new Krupp engines. With the Russian’s help, he purchased the equipment. Later, with the assistance of Harry Leo Reich, an Englishman from Hong Kong who was teaching at the University of the Philippines, he also bought U.S. Westinghouse generators.
He also owned the first private automobile in Mindanao, a two-seat Brush Roadster from London, and founded the largest transport firm in the South after he acquire the transport business of P.J. Moore, owner of Plaza Hotel. He was also a member of Bolton Post Veteran Defenders of the Flag, later renamed to Bolton Camp No. 10, Veteran Army and Defenders of the Flag.
In private life, Frank married Eugenia Garcia, a Spanish-Filipino with Muslim blood, with whom he had three kids: Samuel Boone, Laura (died of appendicitis in 1916), and Patrick James. The couple wedded on April 22, 1903 in Catholic rites at Polloc, Cotabato. He was 27 years old, and she, 18. On April 23, 1909, in Zamboanga, Eugenia died from insect-bite infection.
Years later, he took in Okio Yamagouchi (Yukio Yamaguchi), the amah (nanny) of his kids and the widow of American George Case, a Zamboanga logger, as live-in partner. Their romance lasted only until the time the boys were still enrolled at the Diocesan School & Orphanage in Hong Kong (HK). She eventually returned to Nagasaki, Japan, her hometown.
Frank remarried while the children were boarded in HK. He tied the knot with Annie Pauline Simoes (born Oct. 22, 1896), a daughter of a Portuguese and a Filipina from Zamboanga. He was 42 while she was half his age. The marriage, which took place on Feb 3, 1917, was officiated by Rev. Fr. Mario Suarez, the same priest who married him and Eugenia and later led the necrology service when he died on Dec. 25, 1950. Though married twice in Catholic rites, he remained a Protestant and a Mason. He is buried at the Golden Gate National Cemetery in California. USA.
