Chapter X

                The Tampico Disaster

In September, 1955, killer Hurricane Hilda hit Tampico, 
Mexico. 
    Ferree, uncanny in his ability to foresee what was com- 
ing, was on top of developments from the beginning. He 
had begun to prepare himself while the storm was still at 
sea, asking for large orders of medicines, food, and clothing 
from his sources around the country, knowing that he 
would need them by the time they arrived in the Valley.  
    When Hilda slammed into the Mexican coast, reports  
coming in from Tampico showed Frank's worst fears to be  
well grounded. He would need all the help and supplies he 
could muster. 
    The buildings of downtown Tampico were battered and
torn by the winds, the streets became raging torrents of wa-
ter. Dogs, pigs, and horses swam vainly against the cur-
rents in city streets. 
    First reports listed 183 known dead, with another 370 
persons assumed dead. The Panuco and Tamesi Rivers rose 
rapidly. Then, to make matters worse, the Mexican weather 
bureau reported storms building up in both the Pacific and 
Gulf regions which would pour more water into the flooded
zone.
    Tampico, itself, was reported to be in complete havoc.

 -- 41 -- 

    Frank Ferree got on the phone with the Mexican
governor's office at the inland city of Victoria just before the
lines went down. A secretary said Governor Horacio Teran
was already in Tampico where all classes of aid were des-
perately needed helicopters, rubber boats, food, medicines.
    Ferree, never one to fool around after he'd sized up a
situation, got on the phone to Fourth Army Headquarters
in Fort Sam Houston, Texas. His friend and helper, Lt.
Eric Johnsons stationed at Harlingen Air Force Base, ver-
ified the need of aid to officials at Fort Sam Houston.
    Fourth Army officials called Washington, then told
Ferree that the Mexican government would have to
officially request aid. Ferree called the Mexican Counsul
General Rafael Aveleyra, acting ambassador, who im-
mediately requested aid of the American government.
    By the time Ferree and Lt. Johnson could get to the
Brownsville airport some fifty miles away, they saw three
helicopters coming in for a landing, the vanguard of a vast
relief mission which eventually included the aircraft carrier
Saipan. The flat top, anchored of Tampico, sent in helicop-
ters loaded with food and medical supplies to aid flood vic-
tims in remote areas.
    Helicopter pilots brought back first-hand reports to
Ferree that one-third of the city was under water, with only
tops of telephone poles visible in some areas. The copter
pilots had set up a base at Tampico airport and had begun
dropping family packages of food and clothing to families 
stranded on small islands of land throughout the city. They
kept this up for a week. The relief packages consisted of 
canned milk, fresh bread, flour, beans, and small medical
aid kits.
    Ferree wired the Mexican ambassador again, asking
him to request 100 rubber boats and 5,000 blankets from
American officials.  Within hours a cargo plane with boats
and blankets left for Tampico. 
    The base of operations of the rescue mission was
moved from the Brownsville airport to Harlingen Air Force

  -- 42 -- 

Base, some two miles east of Frank's shack. From this new
base an average of sixteen cargo planes left daily for Tam-
pico. 
    Finally, the hurricane, going inland, broke up against 
the mountains, causing prolonged flooding along the Panuco 
River which flowed back to the Gulf through Tampico and 
surrounding areas. 
    Rear Admiral M. E. Miles, Navy Relief Director for
the area, said he had never seen a disaster of such propor-
tions. Officials feared the death toll would rise to even
more terrible proportions by the new surges of water in the
Panuco and Tamesi.                              I
    Thousands of refugees from the port city of 160,000
jammed the airport and begged helicopter pilots to "fly us
out of here."
    Officials reported that the majority of isolated persons
were slowly starving and sick with malaria and typhoid. 
    Ferree worked day and night. Never had he been so 
busy. He got hold of a vitamin food supplement called 
"Meals for Millions" which was shipped in from a California 
foundation. One gallon of this supplement provided a
glanced meal for twenty-six people at the cost of only 
three cents per meal. He shipped thousands of gallons of 
the supplement and distributed it without charge to Tam-
pico victims.
    A few weeks after the disaster, Governor Horacio
Teran of Tamaulipas State, in appreciation for Ferree's as-
sistance during the hurricane, presented him with a gold 
medal. 
    Governor Teran, accompanied by a party of fifty, in- 
cluding his cabinet members, was escorted across the
Brownsville International Bridge by a Texas delegation con- 
sisting of Texas Governor Allan Shivers and dozens of Val- 
ley mayors and Chamber of Commerce officials. Teran and
his party were entertained at a barbecue dinner, then ap- 
peared on a Harlingen TV station to thank the American 
people for their great aid during the disaster. It was then 
that he presented Ferree with the gold medal.

 -- 43 -- 

                    Chapter Xl

                The Daily Routine

  Ferree's day starts before daylight. It ends about ten at
  night after he's prepared his old truck for the trip next day
  by loading it with supplies.
      Mondays, he goes to Matamoros; Tuesdays to Reynosa.
  Wednesdays he stays around Harlingen, moving through 
  the back alleys as he scrounges day-old bread, wilting fruit 
  and vegetables, soup bones, used soap from motels, old 
  newspapers, scrap lumber. Then back to Matamoros on 
  Thursday, more scrounging in Harlingen on Friday, and to 
  Reynosa on Saturdays. Sundays he tries to rest, "like the  
  Bible says to do." 
      At first his lifestyle offended his fellow citizens, 
  perhaps because they thought he had an ax to grind or a 
  gimmick of some kind. Many considered him just a harm- 
  less old bum who would someday go away. "Kind of crazy," 
  some of them said about him. In time, though, they began 
  to recognize hiS organizational abilities and his dedication to
  helping the poor.
      "We finally realized he is our most distinguished citi-
  zen," a local businessman said. "We'd had a truly holy man
  among us all these years without realizing it.
      I went with Ferree many times to observe him at
  work. On a typical day we went to one of the makeshift

  -- 44 -- 

clinics in Reynosa. Our truck was loaded with medicines 
and vitamins he'd coaxed from a national drug company. 
Sometimes, in Mexico, he gives inoculations if none of the 
volunteer Mexican doctors are available. 
    As we arrived at the clinic, young and old came out to
shake hands with El Amigo, the friend. The distribution of
food and supplies was done with dignity. Some of the usual
helpers are boys and girls who have been operated on and
cured of birth detects through Ferree's mediation with sur-
geons.
    Older women helped give out the food and clothing.
They knew who should get the precious meat, which
mothers with suckling babies most needed the big bottle of
orange juice; just how much and what kind of food this man
with ten motherless children needed.
    After things are organized and going smoothly, Ferree
usually begins to watch for children who have major physi-
cal problems. If he finds one, he will later go to talk to his
more influential friends on both sides of the border, giving
them details of the case, sometimes taking the child along,
asking until they give in and pay for an operation or what-
ever is needed.
    At the lunch break, Ferree picks an orange, a banana,
and a crust of bread for himself: "I remember when I first  
started out," he said. "I walked through the poorest areas  
on both sides of the river, carrying a knapsack with what  
food I could buy or beg. As a matter of fact, the army 
surplus store gave me the knapsack. I wore out six or eight 
of them. Anyway, I discovered there were many children 
along the river who were almost blind with an eye infection 
of some kind. I couldn't practice medicine on the U.S. side, 
but I could on the Mexican side, so I got to mixing penicil- 
lin in salve and treating those children's eyes. That's how 
my medicine program got started." 
    "I've seen Frank deliver babies in his shack at I Har- 
lingen, said Gale Armstrong, a plumber who is one of Fer-
ree's long-time American volunteers. "The door to his shack 

  -- 45 -- 

is never locked and nobody is ever turned away 
    A mother came to him with a boy about seven. At 
her command the boy jumped around th show how he 
could move. Then she pulled up his shirt and showed a
long scar where surgeons had operated on his spine "He
could't get out of bed until the operation," she said and
pointed to El Amigo as the man who brought it about.  
    Through Ferree's efforts, several hundred crippled
children have heen examined and operated on by surgeons
in Monterrey, Mexico, and in Houston, Texas None of the
patients could pay for the surgery, treatment, braces, new 
clothing, toys, hospital expenses, transportation and other 
expenses But Ferree's persuasive powers raised the cash
and found the skills. 
    Today he'd found a girl whose finger had grown to the 
palm of her hand, and tomorrow he will take her over the 
bridge with customs officials' permission, so she can get an
operation from a Harlingen physician. 
    Late in the day Ferree closed his clinic and, after visit- 
ing the city jail, we went to the Mexican state prison far- 
ther down the river, where prisoners live in squalor and 
depravity.  
    The guards knew Frank and they allowed him to enter, 
wllere he attended to the sick He then doled out loaves of 
bread, a few old soup bones to make a big pot of soup in 
the prison yard. As it was near Christmas he brought them 
bags of Christmas candy, tied up in little plastic bags with
an apple and an orange. 

  -- 46 -- 
                   Chapter XII

  The Albert Schweitzer of the Rio Grande Valley

After the day's work, we sat around the big barrel stove in
his shack and Frank threw old newspapers through the hole
in the side of the stove. Chuckling at the use he's found for
the daily rag's drivel, he closed the door and placed a
couple of pieces of bread on top of the drum. When they
had warmed, he took them off and handed one to me
keeping one for himself.
    "You eat them, Frank," I said. "You did all the hard
work today. You need to eat a good supper to keep up your
strength."
    But Ferree declined. Holding out the bread to me, he
said: "I got all I need."
    As I ate the bread, I looked around the shack. There
was no radio or TV set in the building. My gaze went back
to Ferree.
    The man was uncanny. I le did not worry about
whether he was selfish or unselfish, or whether he was
good or bad, or whether people liked him or hated him.
    He simply wanted to help when he saw someone in
need. He just kept hammering at it until he did help, until
he provided whatever it was the suffering person needed to
help him feel better, be it medicine, money, food, clothing,
shelter, or whatever.

  -- 47 -- 

    "You know," Ferree said, "Jesus said help the poor.
Lots of people torget that now. But that's what Christianity
is, helping the poor, helpillg those in need. Everybody had
forgotten that teaching."
    I stared at the man. He lived in litter and pieces of
junky furniture that someone had tossed out. He pulled it
Out of the trash, worked on it a little, tightened it up,
nailed it back together, covered it with a new piece of
material, and kept it in his house until he could find some 
newlyweds who needed it.
    He dressed in rags. He gave away better clothes than
he wore himself: Once I knew a Harlingen businessman 
who had met him downtown on a cold winter's day. An an-
cient army overcoat draped his slim bony shoulders, hang-
ing to his knees. Later, the same businessman found him
scurrying around picking up day-old bread, but without the
overcoat, and in shirtsleeves.
    ''What happened to your overcoat?" he asked.
    Ferree looked up as if it was a matter of little concern.
"Oh, I found a man who needed it worse than I did so I
gave it to him," he explained.
    As I studied him, the man seemed inadequate to his
important and life-giving work. His ears and nose were too
big, his voice gravelly, scratchy, and watery.
    "People give me everything I need tor myself and the
program he said. "Everybody can't do well are work, but
they give what they can. I deal with very poor people, very
poor. They come barefooted and in mud. We give them
milk and bread, sometimes meat, cheese, bologna, clothes,
shoes. Sometimes they need wood which I take from old
packing cases. They take that wood and build themselves a
one-room shelter. They line it inside with old newspapers
which I collect and take to them.
    "I remelllber a girl with a rotting foot. I took her and
smeared penicillin all around her foot, and in a few days
she was completely cured. Otherwise, she would have
surely lost the foot, maybe her life. Fig politics," he chuck-
led.  
                   
 -- 48 --
 
    "I use anything and everything that works. I don't have
no axe to grind, nothing to sell. If it works, I use it.
    "They bring me all kinds of sick. I massage them, pray 
for them. I can find sore places in their spines. I release 
that, but it's the Spirit that does the healing. 
    "My helpers have seen and they believe the Spirit will 
help the sick. Believing is the same as praying, you know. I 
suspect that faith and confidence, and with the medicine, 
we have done things that medical doctors can't do, haven't 
done, wouldn't know how to do. MDs are so limited, you 
know. They just have one avenue, chemicals and chemical 
therapy. There's so much more. 
    "But all these things, there's no use trying to talk to 
our medical friends about this. They think it's out of order, 
you know. I don't care about order, or orders. It's doing 
the business, it's curing the sick, and I use it. People 
who've given up hope elsewhere, they come from all over 
the Border, and we fix them up as best we can. If it works, 
we use it.
    "I like to use the example of Jesus. He didn't use no 
religion. He didn't confine himself to creeds and rules. He
just did what had to be done. The more religions we have
the more division there is, and the less religion there is.
    "Well, anyway, some people try to do their part in the
pulpit, others in the workaday world. Maybe I can do my 
bit in daily life, be an example. It I can be an example to
others, it would surely he nice. It might help others to go
about doing a little more good than they might otherwise
do. Maybe I'm a reminder. Maybe I remind people to do
good, to go about helping each other. I hope so.
    "There is still so much to be done. I can't do it all. I
can only do one thing at a time, but I can do just that-one 
thing at a time.
     Jesus spent more of His life helping the poor, those
who needed curing. Christianity means helping yonr
brother, if he needs it. From my reading of the Bible it
seems that accepting the Lord as your Savior is the most

 -- 49 -- 

important, but we also need to help those about us who 
need help. 
     "I have found, I honestly believe, that the only thing  
you can take with you when you leave this earth is the good 
you have done here, the effort you have put out to make it 
better when you leave than it was when you came here 
that's the only thing you will go away with, the good you
have done." 
     I sat there, stunned by this old man's simple logic I 
looked around the room and I saw hanging on the wall,
among other forms of assorted junk, a medal from Freedom 
Foundation "For his aid to Mexican indigents." 
     Next to that I saw a scroll which the Harlingen Kiwanis 
Club had officially selected Ferree as the good Samaritan of 
South Texas, claiming that "without personal funds, but 
with a big heart and a burning desire to help, he has 
worked tirelessly in providing a minimum of food, clothing, 
and medical care to these unfortunate peoples "
     Even the U.S. Federal government officially recognized 
Ferree's efforts, and used to send him, when it had such 
surpluses, carloads of foods and farm products to be distrib- 
uted among the incredibly poor and destitute along the 
Border. 
     I remembered other things I had picked up concerning 
this old man's good work.
     At a meeting on hurricane relief in Brownsville, Texas, 
John Holland, regional chief of the U.S. Immigration and 
Naturalization Service, told members that the Volunteer 
Border Relief which Frank Ferree founded and managed, 
had done more for good relations between Mexico and 
Texas than all other sources--official, unofficial, and  
private--put together.                      
     A South Texas businessman said at Rotary luncheon 
that Ferree had distributed a million loaves of bread since
he had begun to keep track.
    In Honduras, Dr Stephen Youngberg, M.D., who has 
done wonders for the destitute of that conutry, said, "The

 -- 50 -- 

main reason I came down here was because I had seen
Frank Ferree doing so much on the Mexican border with so
little." 
    Lyndon Johnson, while still a senator said: "Voluteer 
Border Relief is doing a magnificent work on the Border." 
    Cameron County Judge Oscar Dancey of Brownsville, 
wrote that Ferree "is the Albert Schweitzer of the Rio 
Grande Valley." 
    State Department officials in Washington, D.C., have 
written "We have watched Ferree and his large Mexico 
program do so much with so little help." 
    A citizen of the U.S., after observing Ferree at work: 
"I don't think we will ever forget Frank Ferree and the 
completely unselfish nature of the man. We are constantly 
associating Frank with what Reader's Digest phrases "the
most unforgettable character I ever met."

  -- 51 -- 



Frank Ferree, 84, Good Samaritan par excellence. He has
nothing is as poor as the thousands he helps. There is
something of Robin Hood in the old man, although nothing 
of the fameous character's had qualities. Ferree begs from 
the rich to help the desperately poor who suffer from lack of 
food, vitamins, medical care along both sides of the Texas- 
Mexican border. Absolutely everything that is given to Fer- 
ree, he turns over to the poor, keeping only a scrap of
bread, the bare neeessities of life, for himself: Behind his
simple lifestyle and ways are the elear workings of a mind
sharply honed to get whatever is necessary for his poor
people.

   ( 52 ) 



Feree, and Leticia, the girl to whom he gave a face and the 
power of speech. 


   ( 53 ) 



Ferree, left, watches while a volunteer worker administers a 
shot to a woman in one of his Mexican border ghetto clinics. 
Medicine on table was donated by a U.S. drug manugactur-
ing company which learned of Ferree's work. 

  ( 54 )




Frank Ferree uses his carpenter skills to fashion a homemade
coffin for the sister of the two children who wateh him. Be-
fore Ferree could save her, the little girl died after he dis-
covered her deathly ill in the hovel where the children lived
alone. The children are wearing clothes which Ferree
bought for them. He kept them with him until he could find
a foster home for them atter their sister's funeral which 
Frank arranged.

   ( 55 ) 




Ferree among the poor.  Here he smears an ointment contain- 
ing penicillin, which he mixed himself, on the infected eyes 
of a child.  It worked, and it was a good thing it did, because 
it was Frank's medicine, or nothing, for these desperate 
people. 

   ( 56 )


                     Chapter XIII 

       An Unnoticed Monument to One Man's Human
                       Kindness

Harlingen, Texas, where Frank lives, has a population of
50,000, of which 40,000 are Mexican-American. It is at the
center of the Rio Grande Valley. It likes to call itself the
hub city of the Valley. Some ten miles from the Border, as
the crow flies, its economy lies deeply rooted in the sur-
rounding agriculture.
    Go north on 7th Street, past Andy's Model Market,
across the 77 Sunshine Strip by-pass. On the east are the
practice fields of Harlingen High School. On the west, a
few low-income houses soon give way to three ultra- 
modern, magnificent churches of different denominations. 
    A half mile farther north, on the west side of the paved
road, is Frank Ferree's shack, the poorest of the poor,
where unscheduled helpfulness is the order of the day.
    I have seen his response to the needy. Once, in leaner
times, I mentioned casually that my typewriter was worn
out, making it very hard to turn out free-lance newspaper
articles.
    To my great surprise and astonishment, a day later one
of Frank's helpers delivered an ancient, but perfectly usable
typewriter. It seems that years ago when one ol the local
railroad freight offices restocked with new typewriters,

  -- 57 -- 

Frank had taken the old typewriters off their hands and
stored them away in his shack, waiting for someone to need
one. 
    Across the highway and east of Frank's shack lies open
crop land. The Harlingen airport, formerly Harlingen Air
Force Base, is located a couple ot miles away.
    The tall brown grass sways in the Gulf breezes around
Frank's house. A dozen salt-cedar trees provide shade, their
sharp, needle-like leaves sighing constantly in the wind. It
sounds as if the souls of all the world's needy and desperate
are collected in the air around Frank's dwelling, crying out 
their sadness, their frustrations their hopelessness.
    To the south and across the dirt road can be seen the
bare shacks ot the poor. Thev were built on lots provided
from some of Frank's original twenty-three acres. 
    Just north of his shack are the remains of the old mas- 
sage studio which he now uses for storage. In front of this 
stands a large concrete monument and plaque facing the 
highway. A few citizens of the Valley recently erected this
monument and placed a floodlight to shine On it at night.
    The insciption on the monument reads:
    "Inasmuch as you have done it to the least of these
my brethren, you have done it to me." Matt. 25:40.
    "Headquarters site for Volunteer Border Relief. 1943.
Incorporated to extend free and voluntary aid to the home-
less, the hungry and ill Border residents who care."
    Few passers-by even see the monument. Fewer stop to
see what it says. Fewer than that understand what it really
says.
    Do-gooders seldom produce revenue. They seldom can
be exploited by commercial interests. There's simply no
monetary profit to the commullity, to the con-artists and
wheeler-dealers. 
    So an old man does good. Fine, but what's in it for 
me? Where's the money angle? Now, you take a tourist-
trap a carnival ride, a sideshow, these you can promote,
these you can exploit, take the suckers to the cleaners, strip

  -- 58 -- 

 them of all they've got. But a harmless old man who goes 
 about doing good? 
     Several bodies of worn-out trucks rust in the yard.
 Scraps of packing cases, cardboard hoxes pressed flat and 
 stacked neatly, are in front of the house, ready to be loaded
 on the truck to be hauled to those who can build shelters
 from them.
     A large and ancient food refrigerator stands beside the
 front door. Here Ferree stores soup bones and interior
 meat cuts that can't be sold. Nothing is wasted.
     An outside phone rests beneath a crude home-made
 box covering to protect it from the elements. The porch is
 crumbling. The front door has been off its hinges for years,
 long gone to "someone who needed it" more than he. A
 hole in the floor is now covered with a piece of plywood,
 since one of Frank's visitors fell through it.
     He's cleaned up the place somewhat from the utter
 chaos of refuse and stored material that it used to be.
     In the front room there are boxes of grapes, wilted
 fruit, and vegetables which he begged from storekeepers in
 town late today. He'll sort out the rotten and unusable,
 throw out the questionable meat to the dozen stray cats and
 half dozen dogs that hang around.
     The next room has a cot where Frank sleeps. On the
 north side of the room is an assortment of nonperishable
 things which he has repaired and stored until someone
 needs them. Mended, patched blankets, old quilts, end
 rolls of newsprint, worn-out typewriters, old desks chairs,
 tools, scraps and bits that someday, somewhere, will be just
 the thing to ease a desperate man over a crisis, make his
 life more bearable for a while, give him hope and love and
 the knowledge that someone cares for his fate.
     Along the north side of the house, fairly well closed off 
 from the rest, is what Frank has fixed up into a combination
 storage room and dormitory.
     Anyone, man, woman, or child, who has no place to
 spend the night is welcome to sleep there. Sometimes or-

  -- 59 -- 

phans, their parents dead, or runaways have spent weeks 
there until Frank can find relatives who will accept them
until he can place them with someone else. 
    Frank's "people" are the world's mistakes, those who 
have reached the absolute bottom. Many are so far gone, so 
humble, so poor, such human wrecks, that no reputable 
church, government agency, or private citizen will have 
anything to do with them.  
    But Frank turns nobody away. All have a place to 
sleep, and a bite to eat at his house. All will be treated as
dignified human beings. All get a boost of self-esteem from
this most humble of men. 
    Perhaps the most interesting room of this shack is the 
back roon.  Here in little more than a ten by twelve foot 
square, Frank has combined a library, workroom, kitchen, 
visiting area, bathroom, and anything else that might be
needed. 
    A rusty barrel, placed upright, is on the north side of 
the room. A stove pipe leads straight up throtlgh the roof, a 
light bulb on a single electrical cord comes straight down
from the roof. 
    Next to the barrel is a rough table, usually covered by
a tablecloth made out of paper torn off the end rolls from
the local daily's presses. A cabinet on the wall holds his "li-
brary." a few books, the Bible, and tons of clippings about 
himself and those things he's interested in--the plight of 
the poor, the injustices of the world, the things he's read  
about and thinks he can do something about.
    A telephone is next to the door. A twelve-inch hole in 
the floor serves him well when he bathes out of a tub, or
just washes his feet or face. The water drains through the 
hole. 
    An ancient kitchen cupboard holds very little of any 
edibles. It is stocked mostly with medical tapes, rolls of  
bandages, vitamins, pills, pastes. and powders to he used 
on the desperate, forgotten people down by the river. 
   Here in his kitchen, Frank spends most of his inside 

  --  60 -- 

hours before retiring at night, a crust ot toast on the bar- 
rel, the Bible to read, medicines to prepare, phone calls to 
make, plans to write down, schedules to follow, now and 
then an important letter to someone who can help. 
    Here he holds conferences with those who wish to con- 
fer. 
    Overhead and out back the night winds sigh through 
the sharp leaves ot the salt cedars, and the tall brown 
grasses rustle with the air. 
    He is a lonely man. His work is his all. He has little 
time to socialize. Few are those who come to pass the time 
of day with him, to enjoy his company. He is an original 
man in every sense of the word, a true noncomformist 
without being obnoxious about it.  His is the exciting 
movement of a brilliant mind, well-versed in worldly wis- 
dom discarding the dross, the chaff; the unusable, clinging 
doggedly to that which works, that which is eternally true, 
that which gets to the heart of the matter and brings de- 
sired results.  
    Christmas Day, New Year's Day, Thanksgiving Day,  
he is usually alone; minding his business, attending to odd 
chores, reading, playing with his cats and dogs 
    Twice in recent years I took him a bottle of cheap 
wine. Once I included a Christmas cake, warning him  
sternly to eat it himself; and not give it to the poor. I've
never seen him drink, but I trust he rememers the Bible 
reference to a little wine being good for the stomach. 
    At one time he had a stray dog of which he became 
particularly fond It seems a neighbor boy could not keep 
his puppy at home, and the pup wound up at Frank's door 
where it found food and love. 
    One of Frank's friends, Eleanor Galt, a newspaper
photographer, had especially developed a love for the dog
after she'd seen how close Frank and the dog had grown
When the pup was taken to the vet for his shots, the vet 
demanded he be given a name. Gale Armstrong, Franks 
helper, thinking of the photographer's love for the dog, said 

  -- 61 -- 

"All right. Call it Eleanor." Later Armstrong found out the 
dog was a male, but it was too late to change the records
then.
    For the next six months Eleanor was a faithful, loyal 
helper to Frank, seeming to take a personal interest in 
guarding his master's shack and greeting visitors with affec-
tion.    
    "He used to sleep outside the shack, just under the 
window where I slept." Frank said. 
    Then Eleanor was hit by a car, and for four days he 
didn't show up. On the morning of the fourth day, Frank,
beside himself with loneliness, got down on his knees in 
the gravel beside his truck and asked God to protect 
Eleanor and bring him back. 
    A few hours later a neighhor woman saw the dog trying
to crawl back to Frank's house.
    That night Frank gave the injured dog leftover ham-
burger meat and a bowl of water. At bedtime, the dog 
moved painfully to a spot beneath the window and close to 
the master he loved.  
    Early the next morning Armstrong placed the dog in
the truck, and with Frank, took off for an animal hospital.
There they found out the dog had his back broken in two
places.      
    Frank, with tears in his eyes, gave permission to have
Eleanor put to sleep forever. 
    A tremendous, uncanny love had grown up between
the lonely old man and the pup that had wandered in off
the street to be his friend.
        I guess Eleanor sensed his life with me would be 
short,"  Frank said. "Perhaps, I think, I have a feeling that
his spirit will remain here at his adopted home, guarding 
the place like he always did."
    A few weeks later, Frank received another dog, similar
in appearance to Eleanor "I named him Eleanor II," he
said. "I believe it is Eleanor's spirit come back in this new
dog. He's got the same movements, same favorite hideout.

  -- 62 -- 

Same way of stealing food and eating it. Same way of com- 
ing when I call him. Even sleeps under the window by my 
cot. 
    "Do you believe in reincarnation, then? Do you be-
lieve that people's spirits come back again in different 
bodies" I asked. I really wanted to know what his agile
mind thought about the possibility.
    'Can't say about that," he said, smiling. 'But I believe 
that in this case, the spirit of Eleanor came back to guard 
the house and lives in Eleanor II. Of that, I'm convinced." 

    Nowadays Mrs. Gerarda Lopez de Leon and her chil-
dren help Frank with the physical labor ot sorting tood and
supplies and loading them on his trucks.
    Mrs. Lopez arrived in Matamoros several years ago,
sick, and with her small children. She had no money. All
her belongings were tied up in an old sheet which she car-
ried in one hand. Opening the sheet, she tied its corners to
branches of a mesquite tree and there made her home. She
lay in the shade by day, semi-conscious with fever, while
her small children played nearby.
    Some people brought her food from Ferree's clinic.
One day Frank visited her. Immediately on seeing her con-
dition, he loaded her into his truck and took her to the doc-
tor. By this time she was so far gone that she barely re-
sponded. She was given injections and sent home. 
    Several times Ferree visited her at her makeshift house
beneath the sheet. Finally, seeing she was not improving, 
he brought her across to a doctor in Harlingen. Again 
medicines failed to cure her.  For five months, she lan- 
guished.  Ferree sensed that the big trouble was that she'd 
lost all hope. Alone and sick and with children, she could 
see no way out.
    Ferree decided to give her a purpose a goal. He sim- 
ply told her to get well so she could help him with his
work. He needed her help. 
    That was years ago.

  -- 63 --

   "Now." she says, "I live only to help this kind old man  
in old age. Only when I help him, do I feel OK I want 
to work for him, to clean his house, to make him comfort- 
able, to ease his life.  I've seen him help thousands of others 
who had no home, no food, no friends.  I want to help such 
a fine man in such fine work."

    True to the experiences of many saints of the past of 
which Frank Ferree never heard, he began to see and un-
derstand things which are denied to ordinary mortals 
    For example, on his lonely rounds through the dusty
brush country in the back ways, the forgotten ways along 
the Texas-Mexican border he would look out of his truck
cab over the vast nothingness, and it would all seem so 
beautiful to him, so fitting, so complete and he never 
doubted for an instant that it was all formed and under the 
intense and loving and constant care of an All-loving 
Father. He was convinced of this, beyond theory, beyond  
argument, beyond doubt. It just simply was so he knew 
    The short mesquite trees, the thorns the low brush, 
the arid soil, the strong Gulf winds, the semi-tropical suns, 
the endless days, the years he had lived in the flat land 
along the muddy Rio Grande, the cool nights the soft
breeses, the close starlit sky, even the tall, stately palms, 
all seemed a part of him. He was one with mankind with 
Creation. 
    Such experiences down through the ages have heen  
called Illumination, Cosmic Consciousness, Divine Revela- 
tion. and they have been the supreme goal of philosophers, 
mystics, thinkers, ever since recorded history only a very
select few of the pure, the honest, the ones capable of 
deepest love, have ever been blessed thusly. 
    Frank never heard of such speculations. He knows only 
that he feels an attunement with God, sparingly at first, but 
now more and more. 

  -- 64 -- 

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