1964 Frank Joseph Haumont

The selection of Frank J. Haumont as our guest for this evening is a peculiarly happy choice. No one, including Frank Haumont and his family is more pleased at this richly merited recognition than my wife and I. We have cherished the Haumonts as close friends and transgressed upon their hospitality for three decades.

It is difficult to do justice to Frank Haumont by any criteria we may use in measuring the worth of a man -- because of what he has accomplished; and because of what he is. For me the task this evening is especially difficult. In addition to the more or less tangible accomplishments and characteristics which make Frank Haumont worthy of note, he has for 30 years or so made an indelible impression upon me because of qualities which defy delineation and expression. That he holds a unique place in my hear can only be stated; that place cannot be described and defined.

Today, Frank Haumont is impressive physically, after having withstood the buffetings of fate and fortune for man’s allotted three score and ten years. We need not wonder why he appealed to Mrs. Haumont when they met 50 years ago here in Lincoln; nor for that matter, why she appealed to him.

Mentally and intellectually, Frank Haumont has few peers. Somewhere along the way, he acquired the beginning of an education; the foundation for continuing intellectual growth and development. This is the hallmark of an education.

We can only speculate upon the influences which have contributed to his development. His mother came from Pennsylvania to Nebraska as a pioneer school teacher. His father came from Belgium as a young man and made a place for himself in a new country as a successful farmer and in positions of trust and responsibility. Their influence must have been significant. The country school in his home district, the Broken Bow schools, the College of Agriculture and Nebraska Wesleyan University contributed to his growth and development.

In Mrs. Haumont, Frank found a worthy helpmeet. I am sure that she and their two daughters have imposed upon him just about the proper proportion of stimulation and deflationary pressures to keep his mind and spirits in orbit and his feet firmly planted on Custer County soil.

It is apparent that his inherent capabilities imposed no narrow limits upon his growth and development as a man and citizen. At a relatively early age, he displayed the capacity for attracting the attention of older and more mature or experienced men, charged at the moment with wider responsibilities than he had thus far held. He was brought into their activities and given new responsibilities and new opportunities for personal growth and development. With each new experience, his horizons receded and his vision enlarged.

The family and the community into which he was born and in which he has lived; in other words, his environment has interacted with his inherent capabilities to produce the man we honor this evening.

As he has grown, so has his community grown until it now embraces not merely Weissert precinct or Custer County but the State of Nebraska and the United States of America. It cuts across and his activities affect many segments of our total economic, social and cultural complex. His own growth and the ramifications of his activities have kept pace or more than kept pace with the growth of his community and the increasing complexities of that community since November 4, 1894 when he arrived upon the scene.

Frank Haumont has been a keen observer of the swift sweep of history in the past 70 years. He has recorded brief bits of it. More than this he has made important, although largely unsung contributions to it. Through it all, he has remained Frank Haumont.

At this point, I wish to inject a personal note. I had met Frank Haumont, or at least been in groups with him prior to the beginning of our close association. In one of these in which he first attracted my attention, I was impressed by his comprehension of complex issues, his ability to organize his thinking and to express himself clearly; and by his independence of thought and his courage.

Not long afterwards, perhaps 30 years ago, I began to get acquainted with Frank Haumont. He and Mrs. Haumont invited a few people of whom Byron Demorest and I were to join them at a dinner in Broken Bow. I believe that this was sponsored by some organization in the city in connection with the annual meeting of the Nebraska Stock Growers Association.

By the end of the evening Frank Haumont had impressed me as a man among men. Withing a short time, my wife and I with our family visited the Haumont family. Our respect for the Haumonts and our friendship for them has endured and grown with the years. The principal handicap we have suffered in our association with them is the unfailing certainty - even in the “thirties” - with which we encounter rain just before we reach their place or within a short time after our arrival. One of the best evidences of Frank’s disinterested public service is that he still doesn’t have that last two or three miles of hard surfaced road leading to his farm.

Now, let us look at a few items of data concerning from whence Frank Haumont came, or who he is; a little about his family; at some of the activities which have kept him from being bored and at some of his accomplishments. Statistics and items of data frequently are not in themselves interesting. They are a necessary prerequisite for meaningful analyses and discussions in a good many cases. After this, we shall venture a few observations on the more significant question of what Frank Haumont is.
Frank Joseph Haumont was born November 4, 1894 at Elton, a post office then in Custer County but no longer in existence. For at least most of its, existence, it was in the home of either Frank’s father or of some relative.

Frank was born on his father’s homestead on French Table, taken up in 1879 and six miles northwest of where the Haumonts now live.

His father was Jules Joseph Anthony Haumont, born at Vechmael, Belgium, November 8, 1856. His people were long established small landowners and farmers. Some of them antedated Frank in their interest in livestock and showed cattle at the National Fair in Belgium. Belgium is a beautiful and pleasant country with a friendly and industrious people when its bigger neighbors do not elect to use it as a battlefield.

Frank’s mother’s people also were on the land. His mother, Mary Frischkorn was born at New Brighton, Beaver County, Pennsylvania on August 9, 1859. Beaver County is in western Pennsylvania with New Brighton probably 25 or 30 miles northwest of Pittsburg as the crow flies. Her father, Adam Frischkorn was born in Bavaria in 1815 and came to Pennsylvania as a young man. There he married Christina Bimber whose family already were well established farmers in New Sewickley Township. They owned a 120 acre hill-farm devoted to poultry production, dairying and orchards. From what little I have seen of this general area it is not surprising that Frank’s three maternal uncles homesteaded in Custer County. Their mother and father came to Nebraska in 1898 to live with Frank’s parents.

Frank’s mother came to Nebraska to teach school, at first in Dodge County, then in Custer County. She was the first teacher in Frank’s school district and married his father in 1889.

Frank’s parents thus came from the land but the trend toward urbanization had already started. They moved to Broken Bow in March, 1904. Jules Haumont had been elected County Assessor. He was Postmaster at Broken Bow from 1908-1916. He also was a member of the School Board and of the Methodist Church, and became a Vice-President of the Security State Bank.

This residence in Broken Bow made it possible, or at least easier for the Jules Haumont children, including Frank to attend the Broken Bow schools. Frank had started his formal education in the home school, but from the fourth grade attended the Broken Bow schools. He graduated from High School in 1913.

Not every young man in 1913 could boast of a high school diploma, with a school teacher for a mother and a fathers who was a successful farmer, and a holder of positions of public trust and financial leadership in the community.

Not every young man then had the urge or motivation as I suppose I should call it to seek higher education. Probably a good many who considered it, thought the difficulties too great. Something sent Frank Haumont to Lincoln to the College of Agriculture and to Nebraska Wesleyan University. Frank graduated from Wesleyan in the fateful year 1917 with an A.B. degree and a University State Teachers Certificate.

Beside enlarging and deepening the basis for his unceasing future intellectual development at Wesleyan, Frank met Hetty May Bell, the present Mrs. Haumont. Events in 1917 interfered with the normal activities of many young Americans. Frank did his stint in the armed forces and it was not until June 1, 1919 that he and Mrs. Haumont were married.

She was born near Rushville, Nebraska where her father Joseph Bell and her mother althea Taylor Bell homesteaded in 1884. They had been born in Wisconsin and married there in 1882. They then came to Kearney with Miner Taylor and Lenora Stearns Taylor, Mrs. Haumont’s maternal grandparents. Miner Taylor and his wife with the younger members of the family homesteaded in Custer County.

Mrs. Haumont was at Wesleyan from 1914 to 1918 and graduated with a University State Teachers Certificate. She was a leader in student activities and has continued to take an active part in affairs ever since. She was a charter member of the General Custer Post of the Daughters of the American Revolution and a Past Regent. She served for years on the Custer County Extension Board of Directors, on the District School Board and was a long-time member of the Nebraska Republican State Central Committee and Vice-Chairman for Custer County. She and her husband are now Republican Committee woman and man for Westerville precinct.

Mrs. Haumont has been interested in cultural affairs and has coached many country literary plays. I have heard her give an excellent presentation of some of our frontier poetry.

With all of this she has been an important part of the operating and working crew on the Haumont farm. In earlier days she was a top hand with a horse-drawn mower or a hay sweep. She is an expert horsewoman which is an asset on a cattle place. Her family attests to her capabilities as a homemaker.

The Haumonts have two daughters, both of whom attended school in the home district and graduated from Broken Bow High School.

Mary Bell, the older daughter was born August 12, 1920. She graduated from the University of Nebraska in 1942. She married Leo C. Cooksley, a neighbor and a 1942 alumnus of the University when he was in military service, on December 25, 1942. They now live near the Haumonts and are extensive operators. They have arranged for home grown help with two daughters and four sons. Mary Lea is a sophomore at the Agricultural College. Kent has just finished Broken Bow High School. Kevin is a high school freshman. Crystal, Kerry and Kourtney are in the country school at Weissert. The Cooksley’s post office is Berwyn.

Elizabeth Lucille or Betty was born November 6, 1921. She also attended country school in the home district, graduated from Broken Bow High School and attended the University.

On July 21, 1942 she married a neighbor Dale G. Campbell whose grandparents had homesteaded in Custer County. Dale was a student at the Agricultural College but enlisted during Christmas week in 1941 following Pearl Harbor. Dale and Betty have one daughter, Jean Lucille, born July 13, 1948. The Campbell’s address is 1130 Santa Lucia Drive, Pleasant Hill, California.

This discussion cannot be entirely chronological and we shall have to go back to 1919 and Frank and Hetty’s marriage. Following this they lived on Frank’s father’s homestead until about the time of his death in 1934. They set to work immediately to make a place in their community as farmers, livestock producers and citizens. They moved to their present place on Thanksgiving Day in 1934, a place of 720 acres to which they added an adjoining 720. I believe they have some additional land.

It is impossible to discuss or even to list all of their worthwhile activities and accomplishments.

Frank bought his or their first registered Shorthorn in 1919. For many years he followed a consistent, constructive breeding program designed to develop a herd of registered Polled Shorthorn cattle with scale and fleshing qualities and the inherent capacity to produce milk and butterfat. In 1928 he helped organize the first Dairy Herd Improvement Association in Custer County. He gradually built up his herd until it numbered about 200 head of all classes. When he discontinued testing his cows in the early “forties” because of war time pressures, he had 30 Record of Merit cows of his own breeding. One of his herd sires, the Defender X 1692163 RM, was at the time of his death the leading Polled Record of Merit sire in Shorthorn Breed history. A sire from the herd was used at the National Research Center in Beltsville. The Haumont herd is widely known and has furnished breeding cattle to 35 states.

Now Frank devotes so much time to serving the public that he uses his herd of registered Shorthorns to harvest and process the production from much of his land and thus do most of his home work for him.

Frank Haumont was actively involved in extension work from 1919 to 1949. He held practically all offices in the Custer County Extension organization. His activity in organizing the first Dairy Herd Improvement Association has already been mentioned. In the late “twenties” he helped organize the first Breeders and Feeders Organization in the County.

He was elected secretary of the Custer County Taxpayer’s League in 1928. J.D. Ream, one of Nebraska’s first 10 Master Farmers, then Master of the Nebraska State Grange was President. Seven prominent citizens, one from each of the seven County Supervisor Districts were Directors.
The League secured an open door business administration of county business, the first actual audit of the county’s business and Custer County found itself with all bills paid at the beginning of the disastrous drought and depression.

He was Chairman of the Custer County Drouth Committee in 1934, when 48,000 head of cattle were bought.

He has supported the work of the Soil Conservation Services and followed soil, water and pasture conservation practices. I saw his fields and pastures in 1934 and have noted their improvements at intervals since then.

Frank was the Republican nominee for the State Legislature from the East one-half of Custer County in 1932. The Franklin D. Roosevelt landslide of that year covered up his political ambitions. This is the only elective office for which he has filed except for REA Director and delegate to the Custer County Republican Convention.

Since September 1944 Frank Haumont has taken an active part in promoting Rural Electrification. In September of that year, at a mass meeting of 700 farm people of Custer County at the Broken Bow High School, he moved “to proceed to organize an REA District to bring electric current to Custer County.” This was the 1944 Program Project of the Custer County Extension Board of Directors of which he had been a member for 25 years.

He was selected as one of the Organization Committee of 21 for the proposed REA District, three from each of the Supervisor Districts of the County. He was then elected Chairman of the organizing Board of seven REA Directors of the new Custer County Public Power District. He has been re-elected each year since. The Directors are elected at large from a district which now involves 10 counties and serves 13 incorporated towns and 3,500 farm and ranch families. It has 4,000 miles of lines and 35 employees, with an original investment of 7-million dollars. Its present sales are approximately $1,000,000 of which one-third goes to debt service and amortization.

As President of the Custer Public Power District, Frank is a Director in the Nebraska Rural Electric Association and in the Nebraska Generating and Transmission Cooperative. He is now a member of the legislative committee and of the joint legislative sub-committee of these organizations.

There are few, if any problems in Nebraska more highly charged than those dealing with the generation, transmission, distribution and use of electricity. They are so many and complex that I am not qualified to discuss them. Even if I were, there is not time for their discussion here. I can say that for two decades or more Frank Haumont has been a thorough student of these problems which touch the lives of every Nebraskan. He has been an active, dedicated, sincere and effective worker in developing cheap, adequate and efficient electric power and service under public control in Nebraska.

There are few people who think and act more independently than Frank Haumont. On the other hand, he has recognized fully the necessity for joint or group action in the study of problems; in the development of programs and in carrying them through to fruition.

In addition to his group activities already mentioned he has been an active and influential member of many organizations.

Naturally farm and livestock organizations have attracted his interest and enlisted his support. Reference already has been made to his connection with agricultural extension work and with soil and water and grassland conservation and with Rural Electrification. He has been and is an active member of the Grange and is now one of three trustees of the Weissert Grange.

He has been an influential member of the Farmers Union for many years. He has been elected President of the Legislative Committee of the Nebraska Farmers Union each biennium for the past 20 years. This committee normally consists of 40 to 45 members. This Legislative Committee’s Report as approved by the Annual State Convention, becomes binding official policy for the organization. It seems a fair assumption that his work and judgment have contributed to the relatively high standing enjoyed by the Nebraska Farmers Union.

He is now also a member of numerous other influential organizations including the American Shorthorn Breeders Association, the American Milking Shorthorn Society, Nebraska Breeders and Feeders Association, American National Cattleman’s Association, Sandhills Cattle Association, The Nebraska and National Reclamation Association, the American Legion, the Methodist Church and the Masonic Order. He is active in the Weissert Community church and Sunday School. He probably holds or has held membership in a number of other groups which I have missed.

He has played an important part as a member of numerous committees of these organizations and of other important committees and has also acted as an individual.

He has participated in policy making committees of educational meetings concerned with public education at the State and local level for many years.

Frank Haumont’s interests in research have been broad. He has supported efforts to promote the industrial utilization of agricultural resources as the most practicable method of keeping reserves of agricultural products at manageable levels while supporting prices at parity for the benefit of the total American economy as well as of American agriculture.

He has served as a member of the advisory committee for the College of Agriculture both while W.V. Lambert was Dean and after E.F. Frolik became Dean.

He served for four years as a member of the Agricultural Research and Policy Committee of the United States Department of Agriculture. In this his critical thinking and his independence won him both respect and criticism. The respect which he engendered there some dozen years ago resulted in strong friendships on the part of critical thinkers, which have endured over the years.

Naturally, I have appreciated the informed and aggressive interest he has taken in the University and the College of Agriculture, especially the research work of the Agricultural Experiment Station.

His support has reflected his own convictions and not been based upon personal friendship for me. He and I can differ readily in our analysis of problems and on approaches for the amelioration. I believe I have never asked Frank for support for the University. I have had confidence that a man possessed of his unique analytical powers, objectivity of thinking and understanding of the basic importance of the University in the intellectual, social, and economic development of Nebraska and the nation, couldn’t help supporting the University generally. I also knew that he would reserve and exercise his prerogative as an individual and a citizen to criticize details of its activities.

Frank Haumont, in Lieutenant-Governor Charles Warner’s office, wrote the resolution asking for the transfer of Fort Robinson to the State University for Agricultural and Animal Research. This was introduced by Senator Hern and passed. The physical facilities were never actually transferred to the University.

However, on the basis of the support expressed by the State Government we were able to proceed with the development of the comprehensive and outstanding beef cattle breeding research program now underway at Fort Robinson.

This program has been developed in cooperation with the Agricultural Research Service and spearheaded by Federal and State workers at Fort Robinson and here at Lincoln, including Dr. Keith E. Gregory and Dr. Robert M. Koch. It is recognized throughout the United States and in much of the western world as probably the largest beef cattle breeding project in the world and with a soundly conceived and effectively conducted program.

A year or two ago Frank Haumont offered a motion in the Hall of Agricultural Achievement business meeting placing the Hall on record as endorsing the acquisition of the Naval Depot in Clay County by the University for research purposes.

It seems probable that within the next few years, we shall see develop at this location the most important meat animal research station in the world. The direct value of such developments as the fort Robinson and the Clay Center stations to the nation and the world generally can hardly be overestimated. They are of especial significance to Nebraska because of the importance of beef cattle in harvesting, processing and marketing effectively the production of more than one-half of our acreage.

Our material welfare depends upon the effectiveness with which we do this and our ability to put on the market a product, competitive with other food products.

Frank Haumont can take real satisfaction from these perceptive approaches to our long range development which he has supported aggressively and effectively.

I am also indebted to him for help he has given me in research in which I was personally and directly involved.

Frank Haumont was born near the beginning of the most explosive period in American history and development. He has lived through seven decades of this history and development. Regardless of the inadequacies with which I have portrayed his activities and contributions in this dynamic period it must be apparent that they have been no less than remarkable.

By any criteria we wish to use, he ranks high as a citizen; as a thinker, a planner, a doer and a builder. He has done what he has done with no apparent personal ambition except to get what he considered the proper things done. It has been said of Saint Paul that he served the Lord but made tents for a living. It can be said of Frank Haumont that he farmed and bred livestock for a living but that he has served his fellow man.

It is inevitable that a man as perceptive and aggressive as he, involved in the struggles of a complex and growing society will sometimes tread upon toes of those less perceptive and outspoken than he. So it has been with Frank Haumont.

A number of years ago, I happened to drop in on a small conference of men who had been asked to make recommendations concerning Frank’s suitability for a rather significant assignment. One man suggested that he didn’t know; that he understood that Frank was considered controversial. Another spoke up and said “That is correct; it is too bad that there are not more people regarded as controversial for reasons that apply to Frank Haumont.” Frank did receive the appointment and rendered noteworthy service in it.

Of course a man often fails to endear himself when he tells an important person, one conscious of his own importance, that his principal fault is that he once took a course in Freshman Economics and still believes it. I have always thought the remark especially apt but am sure that this did not make it any more endearing.

I shall not attempt to classify him too definitely ideologically or philosophically. No doubt he has from his Continental forbears and his own experience a strong streak of conservation. I remember how shocked he was almost 20 years ago, when in the discussion of some moot question, I said “Why, Frank here I thought you were a conservative; and I find you more liberal than I.” He didn’t even reply. Although his ancestors were from the Continent, they came to a new land; even to the frontier. They apparently were willing to try new things. They had to be pragmatists in order to survive. From some of the positions he has taken I suspect some of you think that Frank is a flaming liberal. I consider him an intelligent, hard working, courageous pragmatist.

I wish to close on a personal note given in all sincerity. I respect and admire Frank Haumont for his contributions as a citizen and for his devotion to the betterment of his fellow men displayed by his unceasing and effective efforts in many areas of activity; but I love and appreciate him because of what he is -- a broadly educated, humane intellectual; a sharp but kindly critic and an understanding friend.