Frank Downard, also known during the course of his long and varied criminal career as Frank Burge and Tom Downard, seems to have been one of Lucas County's hard-luck kids --- although only the opening years of his life were spent here.
Born June 7, 1898, in Chariton, his parents were John Thomas and Wylola (Ward) Downard, who also became the parents of Dora two years later --- and then divorced. Wylola married Richard Burge as the second of at least four husbands, moved to Oskaloosa and her two children began using the surname Burge. Frank's education in the Oskaloosa schools ended after the fifth grade.
Frank's father was part of a large and widely known Lucas County family headed by Isaac Newton and Anna (West) Downard that included another Frank Downard (1877-1935), a highly respected rural mail carrier of Russell, the younger Frank's uncle after whom he was in part named. The two Franks were at opposite ends of the respectability spectrum and should not be confused.
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Young Frank, then known as Frank Burge, began his long and intimate relationship with the Iowa State Penitentiary in Fort Madison during his teen-age years, while serving a term for breaking and entering from Mahaska County. Paroled during late 1916, he was arrested in Des Moines on Jan. 17, 1917, while in possession of two horses he had stolen at Oskaloosa --- and sent back to Fort Madison.
Paroled again during June of 1921, he was back in prison soon thereafter, having once again violated the conditions of his release.
While working as a trusty in a cemetery along railroad tracks a year later, on June 8, 1922, he hopped aboard a freight and escaped --- heading for Lucas County, where he had been paroled to a year earlier and where his athletic prowess as a baseball pitcher had become widely known.
Prison officials seem to have figured out where Frank was headed and later on during June dispatched two armed guards to retrieve him --- and that was the reason why gunshots disturbed an otherwise peaceful Sunday morning near Freedom on June 24 as those two guards and a posse of neighbors tried and failed to corner the elusive Mr. Downard.
Here's how The Herald-Patriot of June 29 reported the morning's adventure:
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Last Saturday evening two guards left the penitentiary at Ft. Madison coming overland to Lucas county in search of Frank Downard, who escaped from the prison there about the 8th of June. Two guards with their driver, a trusty, arrived here early Sunday morning and went to the south part of the county where they thought they would find their man. They were successful in locating Downard, but were unsuccessful in effecting a capture.
Downard, who was originally sent to prison from Mahaska county, was later paroled to Lucas county parties, but later the parole was revoked and the man taken back to the penitentiary. The charge under which he was sentenced was larceny.
In the Freedom neighborhood in the southern part of the county the guards came across the man they sought who was playing "catch" with some of the men of the neighborhood at a farm home. When the prison car drove up and stopped, Downard recognized the guards and immediately fled to the woods. The guards pursued the fleeing prisoner and called to him to halt. Several shots were fired, but the man didn't hesitate in his flight.
Downard, we understand, has considerable ability as a baseball pitcher and the preceding Sunday pitched for the Freedom team against Millerton,, winning the game. The same teams were scheduled to meet again on the day the guards arrived. A posse from the neighborhood joined in the search for Downard, several members of the pursuing band, it is said, hoping to elicit a capture in order that Downard might be allowed to pitch the game before returning to prison.
While the guards were searching for the man, the car was left alone with the trusty on Wolf Creek.
Later the sheriff's office at Chariton was notified and local officers gave what assistance they could. That Downard was in the county, local officers knew, but they had not been informed that he had escaped from prison. It is probable that had the guards consulted with the sheriff before they attempted the arrest, Downard's capture would have been accomplished, for it was know here that Downard expected to play ball in the afternoon at Millerton.
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I couldn't find anything to tell me the circumstances of Frank's capture, but recaptured he was. Sent back to Fort Madison, he was dispatched from there on July 1 to the prison in Anamosa where he served out the remainder of his time --- without further parole --- until release on May 5, 1929.
I have no idea of the details of his criminal career after that, but checked federal census records and found him enumerated as a resident of the Fort Madison penitentiary during both 1930 and 1940.
The last prison-related reference I could find during a quick survey involved his release from the penitentiary during 1944 at the age of 46.
At some point after that, but prior to 1946, he married Alice (Wittmer) Kennedy in Des Moines and they relocated during the early 1950s to Council Bluffs, where the remainder of their lives were spent. Frank was listed as a janitor at the Iowa School for the Deaf in the Council Bluffs city directory of 1954.
Did he fly a straight and narrow course after his marriage to Alice? I can't say. But they did remain together until death and share a tombstone at that city's Garner Cemetery.
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