📄 Letter, Florence Tone to F.J. Tone, July 17 1939

Don't confuse the sender, Florence Tone, with Florence May Tone (1871-1943). This letter is a photocopy of the original. In it she details the career of her husband "Tony". Another letter from Florence is found in 📄 Frank Jerome Tone letters to Western relatives, 1936.

This letter follows up on one written by her husband Ransom.

Junction City, Ore
July 17, 1939

Mr. Frank Tone
Niagara Falls, N.Y.

Dear Mr. Tone,

The more I think about what my husband wrote you about himself, the less I think of what he had to say. It is like him to say he browsed [?] at school and earned no degrees. The only reason he hasn't several degrees is that he did not care anything about them. Tone earned his way through High School, Pharmacy School, and took complete courses in premedic, law, and pedagogy. He has earned more than six years of University credits, and one third of his [unreadable] work was done by correspondence. The extensive [unreadable] of the University of Utah pronounced him their best student.

I don't want to overdo it, but if anyone in the James Manahan Tone branch has earned mention in the Tone family record, he has. He has attended the Universities of South Dakota, North Dakota and Utah. He has been an athletic and football coach and a teacher of exceptional ability. It seems to me he might at least have called himself a teacher. Once he taught in a mining town in Utah in order to study the [unreadable] and the foreign mining element.

He might also be called something of a business man, with a record behind him which the average man never attains. He has been a great salesman and sales manager. In the past fifteen years I have driven fpr him nearly 200,000 miles, missing none of the states west of the Mississippi, for he has been unable to drive much since his knee injury in 1918.

Tony was the organizer, promoter, and for seven years president and general manager of National Bonds, Inc, a savings and real estate loan company. He also organized and was first president of [unreadable] Chrome, Inc. A few years ago he employed many men and had eight branch offices in two states. The news article I am enclosing tells about the chrome company.

In fact, he attempted too much and he has paid dearly for it these last five years. He says he is going into business again when his health is better and the government is again restored to the people, but I hope he does not. Personally, I admire his courage under prolonged physical pain and business losses more than I do his ambitions.

Sincerely yours,
Florence Tone

July 18, 1939

A letter from Father Tone this morning says that the most reansparent picture is that of James Manahan Tone. The other is his son John Alfred.

Notes:

• "Tony" may be a nickname for someone named Tone rather than a first name.
• James Manahan Tone (1793-1873) was one of the sons of John A. Tone (1768-1825). He was born in New Jersey and later lived in around Bergen, NY and finally in Wisconsin. One of his sons was John Alfred Tone (1830-1900), mentioned in the letter. Another was Ransom Howland Tone (1833-1904).