Talk:Francis Bowes Sayre Sr.

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The Williams College site gives year of birth as 1891, but Who Was Who gives the full date as April 30, 1885, which I take to be the better reference until something more authoritative turns up. On the other hand, the Williams College date lines up better with the college and law school graduation dates of FBS. User:Cuppysfriend, June 24, 2005


 * The Social Security Death Index lists a Francis Sayre born on April 30, 1885 and died in March 1972. SSN was 109-28-0949.  That confirms the Who Was Who birthdate. Ydorb 17:32, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

I emailed the Williams College Archives with a query about the correct date of birth and received the following response from Archives Assistant Linda Hall:

Alumni records have the birthdate as April 30, 1885, in his own handwriting. born South Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. to Robert Heysham Sayre and Martha Finley Nevin Sayre

In Sayre's autobiography it states that he had a "physical breakdown" and the doctor had ordered him out of school--- (Lawrenceville). So he was "exiling me for a year or two to the out of doors in strange places, eventuated in one of the truly rewarding experiences of my life". He traveled out west with his brother into the Shoshone Indian Reservation and he spent the next fall and winter on a sheep ranch in Montana. He attended Williams from Sept. 1905 and grad. June 1909 He completed his college work in 3 and 1/2 years and after a "cowboy trip to Montana" returned to Williams for graduation in June 1909. He spent his junior year summer in Labrador and the summer after graduation with Dr. Grenfell there.

Source: Alumni Records bio file and "Glad Adventure", an autobiography by Francis Bowes Sayre, c1957, Macmillan Co.

Ms. Hall also wrote that the 1891 date on the Williams site will be corrected.

A further note: The Social Security Death Index gives the place of legal residence at death, not necessarily the actual place of death. I fell into the trap with an edit I did on baseball player Rollie Zeider, then had to change back. User:Cuppysfriend, June 28, 2005