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Meet FRANK SARGENT
If you hadn’t known Frank Sargent that well…that is, beyond the pleasant, soft-spoken southern gentleman who reads the lessons during the 10 o’clock services…you just might have been a little surprised during the parish’s 50th anniversary dinner earlier this year with how forcefully he spoke about the formative years at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church..
He recalled how, during the early 60s and shortly after St. Peter’s was formed as a mission church of St. Andrew’s, he attended a diocesan convention in St. Joseph, Mo. with another parish founder, Dr. Carl Siegel.
“A resolution came up at the convention to welcome the Black community to the Episcopal Church,” he said. “We were technically part of the St. Andrews delegation and the St. Andrew’s people were opposed to the resolution. They wanted it to be unanimous in our group but Carl and I supported the resolution and we wouldn’t budge. St. Peter’s stood firm.”
Frank, 86, was born and raised in Vicksburg, Mississippi where, he remembers with his signature smile, “we never celebrated the 4th of July…that was a day of mourning in Vicksburg because it was the day that Ulysses S. Grant marched down Washington Street after the city surrendered in 1863.”
He said that during his youth he simply accepted the norms of time and place:
“When you grew up in the south you were taught that Blacks were inferior to Whites. I began to think about it in college. When my wife Daisy and I moved to Kansas City I began to realize how terrible that (attitude) was.”
College was Mississippi State University from whence he graduated in 1943. Daisy was another story in herself.
“After I graduated I joined the Army Air Corps and served in the European Theater of Operations with the 349th Troop Carrier Group. I ended up as a sergeant.” (Let the first thing that comes to mind here slide).
“In 1946 I went to work as an engineer for the Rural Electrification Administration in Washington, D.C. A colleague came up to me one day and said he wanted to meet this girl. She had been at a party he had been at and everyone there had called her Daisy because she was from Arkansas and looked and sounded like Daisy Mae Scragg from the Lil’ Abner cartoon. She was introduced to me as “Daisy” and I never knew that her real name was Margaret until the day before we got our wedding license (also in 1946). We moved to Kansas City the following year to take a job with Black & Veatch Consulting Engineers and, of course, no one knew what her real name was because I always called her Daisy.”
Frank and Daisy prospered in Kansas City. He served as project engineer for numerous projects throughout the country until his retirement from the firm in 1987. The couple lived in Prairie Village and Leawood. They joined the new St. Peter’s colony because St. Andrew’s was too big, he said. Daisy was an anchor in the new church with numerous groups and Frank served as a lay reader, chalice bearer and choir member and he was on the vestry for several terms.
“We hadn’t gone to church much when we were first married,” Frank recalls. “But when the children were born we wanted them to have a Christian education. We went to Methodist churches because that’s where Daisy was raised. I was born and baptized an Episcopalian. We eventually found St. Peter’s.”
Like many scientists, Frank is resolute in his faith because, he says, he draws inspiration from the scriptures but does not always accept all passages literally. His total commitment came late in life.
“I attended a Cursillo during my early 60s and it was like being born again. I think I really became a true Christian after that. They don’t have Cursillos at St. Peter’s anymore. I don’t know why.”
Daisy passed away on Jan. 19, 1997, a year after the couple’s 50th wedding anniversary.
Frank remarried the following year. Betty Riordan and Frank split much of their Sundays between St. Peter’s and Roman Catholic churches to accommodate both of their spiritual histories. (“She would let me take communion in the Catholic church but only if none her friends were there.”) She died last November.
“Betty and I had a very happy marriage. We were both really big baseball fans and we liked to play Bridge. She had been a teacher and she taught me so much about so many things. I learned more from her about clothes, manners and how to treat people. I’m sure she improved my personality 100 percent.”
Frank lives in a comfortable one-bedroom apartment in the Grant Court seniors’ complex at 119th and Lamar streets. He has a passion for old movies and cross-stitching.
Frank Sargent is a man who has seen, done and learned a great deal and, as such, is a treasure chest for younger generations of whom he is totally uncritical.
He wrote a manuscript entitled “Favorite Songs of Frank Sargent”, a remarkable collection of lyrics of some 80 songs, all with personal comments and reflections.
Read it and you’ll meet a talented writer who can combine the clarity, economy of words and the clear logic of an engineer.
“It has occurred to me many times since the advent of rock and roll that song lyrics aren’t as good as they used to be,” he wrote. “That’s why I put together this collection of some of my favorite songs; first, for my own pleasure, and second, to remind my contemporaries how wonderful the music was that we grew up with. Third, I’d like to share these songs with some of the younger generation to show them what they missed and are missing.” |
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