That year he was adopted by an elderly couple and moved to Melbourne. The couple, the Henagans, had a grown-up daughter named Myrtle, who was in her late 20s and whom Frank assumed was his adopted sister. When he was about 18 or so, Frank found out that his sister was actually his mother and that the couple that he’d known as his parents were actually his grandparents.
Frank attended school in Coburg before going to Parade College in East Melbourne to complete his Matriculation. He was then accepted into RMIT to study engineering. This was a great opportunity, but it wasn’t really what he wanted to do. Already a keen sportsman who was a gifted middle-distance runner and footballer, Frank’s ambition was to become a Phys Ed teacher, but he was dissuaded by his teachers who were concerned about his speech impediment.
Frank completed two years at RMIT, working at night at Radio Corporation to help support himself; and was also involved in athletics and competing in country gift meetings throughout the state. Things got too much for him and he suffered a nervous breakdown. To help him recover, it was suggested to Frank that he get away from Melbourne. So, in the early 1950s, he moved to Mildura for some sunshine and a change of scenery.
While in Mildura, he did whatever came along as a job – there was always fruit or grapes to pick – and he also played for the Mildura Imperials Football Club.
Eventually, he came back to Melbourne and decided that the outdoor life was best for him. After qualifying with the Royal Victorian Bowls Association as a greenkeeper, Frank had stints at the Kew and Fitzroy Bowling clubs before joining the staff of Port Melbourne Council in about 1966.
Frank never stopped being active in sport. As well as playing football in Mildura and helping as a trainer – at first with Port Melbourne and then with the University Blues – he was also a qualified VFL umpire. In addition, he was an excellent middle- distance runner who trained with Franz Stampfl’s squad in the lead-up to the Melbourne Olympics in 1956; and was the pace- maker when Merv Lincoln became the third person in the world to break the four-minute mile in the same year.
Frank’s involvement at Port Melbourne encompassed both looking after the city’s gardens, and working at the Port Melbourne Football Club as a trainer. It was there that he got to know the legendary Norm Goss, who was secretary of the football club and also worked for the council. To work for Port Council, you had to be a resident of the borough, so Frank boarded in a house in Port Melbourne and travelled across town
during the week for training and matches at the University oval. Through his involvement with the Blues, he met students Justin Cook and Rod Lyle who, in 1976, persuaded him to apply for the job of gardener at Trinity College.
It has to be said that the College administration was far keener on the idea of him joining the team than he was. Frank recalled his first meeting with Alan Todd, who was the Bursar of the College. He was slightly taken aback when Todd offered him the job on the spot – especially as he had had the chance to peruse the gardens and get an understanding of the task he was taking on! He ruefully recalled that the rose bushes were about a metre high and out of control and that the grass and weeds were even higher.
Nearly 38 years later, Frank still had the job right up to the end. Over time, he was the groundkeeper, verger, porter and that bloke who helped as a waiter during formal dinners. Right up to the week or so before he entered hospital for the last time, and in his 80th year, Frank was still distributing the mail to the different areas of the College community.
Most importantly, he was the football and athletics coach and mentor, friend and confidant for so much of the College. Frank took over as Colleg
