The Story of Petey Frank

John Peter Frank was a curly-haired, dark-eyed baby who seemed perfectly normal at birth and for the first few months of his life in Bloomington. Ind., where his father was teaching law at the state university. True, Petey seemed slower than most babies in trying to roll over and sit up, but his parents thought little of it. One steaming day in Washington, D.C., Petey fainted and was sick for a while; the doctor thought it was only the heat. A second seizure was laid to an ear infection. The third time, a doctor gave the verdict: "It's CNS."

To Lawyer Frank, the initials meant nothing. Then the bitter truth was spelled out: Petey's illness lay in the central nervous system. A series of tests was made, and the Franks learned the worst: Petey was suffering from what some of the doctors called cortical atrophy. A vital region of the brain was defective. Petey might never learn to walk or to talk; if he "grew up" at all, it would be slowly and ever so slightly.

The Patience of Angels. John Paul Frank tells all this, and what has happened to Petey since, in My Son's Story (Knopf; $3). "The publishing of it is a ripping apart of his privacy and ours," he says, but he does it for three reasons: "First, the American people ought to know more than they do about an almost unknown and yet common tragedy in their midst . . . If they know, they can do a great deal to improve the handling of it. Second, certain people, doing a magnificent if lonely job trying to meet the situation now, deserve a public recognition. And finally . . . perhaps our account of groping our way through may help the next fellow along the same path."

The doctors were unanimous that the Franks ought to put Petey in a home, and soon. The care of an incurably handicapped child would blight the parents' lives, and rule out a normal home for later children. Though the Franks are Jewish, a Protestant doctor advised them to get Petey into a Roman Catholic home for children. He explained: "It takes the patience of an angel to care for the mentally defective. The sisters are more likely to have it than any one else."

It was easier said than done. Lawyer Frank had been law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Hugo L. Black* and was able to draw on the powerful help of a Catholic justice, the late Frank Murphy. Even so, it took many months to find among the few homes caring for handicapped children one that would accept a baby of Petey's age and with his incurable illness. It took almost as long for Petey's mother, Lorraine Frank, to make up her mind to part with her firstborn. Only when her second baby was on the way could she make the difficult decision.

Walking Proudly. Then the Franks got a break. There was a vacancy at St. Rita's Home, outside Buffalo, run by the Felician Sisters, and Petey was accepted. There, among other retarded children for whom there is no hope of normal development, Petey has stayed, and his parents visit him three or four times a year. Now five, he weighs a little over 30 pounds and has the mental powers of a one-year-old. He has learned to walk--"ungracefully and unsteadily," says his mother, "but with an unmistakably proud grin on his face"--and he can say a few simple words.

The Franks are sure that they did the right thing. Petey is happy with other children, and is getting the best of care. And their second child, three-year-old Gretchen, is a normal youngster enjoying a normal home life.

* Of whom he wrote a sympathetic biography (Mr. Justice Black: The Man and His Opinions) in 1949.

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