T.H. Frankling
The Mysterious Fountainhead of CGA Ontario
Page 5
The Prestige of the 67 Yonge Street Years
In the mid-1930s, T.H. Frankling & Company moved its offices to the prestigious Traders Bank of Canada Building at 67 Yonge Street in Toronto, just south of the corner of King and Yonge Streets. It was a move that signified the success of T.H. Frankling both professionally and personally, as well as the growing success of the Toronto Branch and the CGA designation in Ontario.
While the details of this time are sketchy, FCGAs such as Harold Garland and Herb Perry recall that Frankling gained a high profile in business and financial circles through a prominent role in an investigative audit into the finances of Consumer’s Gas, one of the oldest distributors of natural gas in Canada. Ivy Thomas continued to work with Frankling at 67 Yonge Street, and would eventually become a partner in his firm.
Frankling’s personal life was a success as well. Both he and his wife, Annie M. Frankling, were active in benevolent and charitable institutions. T.H. belonged to the Sons of England Benevolent Society and the St. George’s Society, both of which had similar values: monarchist, establishment organizations that supported English immigrants to Canada and provided charity mainly to working class families. Neither of these organizations exists today.
Mrs. T.H. Frankling (as she was known in newspaper reports) was an active member of the Imperial Order of the Daughters of the Empire (I.O.D.E.): a philanthropic organization during years of peace, it acted as a national emergency organization during war years, and was particularly active in raising funds during World War Two.
By the 1940s, the Franklings had moved to the affluent neighbourhood of Runnymede in West Toronto, where they raised a daughter, Jean, who became an occupational therapist and lieutenant in the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps during WWII. Mrs. Frankling belonged to the Runnymede chapter of the I.O.D.E., whose wartime benevolence included hosting parties for war brides and nurses returning from overseas, as well as sending parcels of food, clothing and even Christmas gifts to adopted military personnel, such as the men on a British minesweeper. For her service, Annie Frankling was awarded an I.O.D.E. service pin.
Significantly, when daughter Jean married in 1948, both the wedding announcement and the wedding itself, accompanied by a photograph, were covered by the Toronto Star:
Jean Marie Frankling, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. T.H. Frankling, will become the bride of Major Roy Oglesby, Canadian Army headquarters…in a setting of candelabra and gold and bronze ’mums, in St. Paul’s Anglican church [Runnymede], this evening. [Jean Frankling] will wear a period gown of ivory faille taffeta with full skirt and train, and a collar of heirloom lace. She will carry her great grandmother’s lace handkerchief and will wear [a] tulle illusion fingertip veil fashioned with a headdress of heirloom lace. She will carry a prayer book adorned with gardenias…At Kilcooley Gardens, the bride’s mother will receive in a grey crepe gown with a corsage of pansies.
It was the type of lavish ceremony that was still rare in 1948, due to the limited financial means of most people during the war years, but T.H. Frankling had the financial and social standing to carry it off. To those who knew the inner workings of the Toronto Branch of the GAA, T.H. Frankling was the organization. For more than 25 years, Frankling was continuously re-elected as the organization’s secretary and treasurer. He interviewed prospective candidates and took a passionate interest in the examination scores. To this day, the memory of Frankling still invokes nervous laughter in the certified general accountants who were interviewed by CGA Ontario’s fountainhead.
“That was an unnerving experience,” recalls Art Bond, FCGA, of his interview with Frankling in the 1950s. “He made me very nervous. It was very formal. There weren’t any jokes being passed back and forth. I certainly wasn’t sitting around lolling in a chair.”
The aspiring professional accountants who travelled to the Branch’s headquarters on Yonge Street were in for an intimidating experience: the Traders Bank Building was once the tallest building in Canada, a limestone and masonry institution that proclaimed its exceptionalism. Prospective accountants slowly rode an open elevator with pneumatic bronze elevator gates to the CGA offices on the 10th floor. They clearly knew they were being interviewed to see if they lived up to Frankling’s standards of a CGA.
“That’s exactly the impression I had,” says Art Bond. “I wanted to be on my best behaviour.”
In an ironic twist, Art Bond would ultimately win the T.H. Frankling gold medal for accountancy (an award he shared with fellow CGA student Russell Kirkconnell), but his entry into the program was never assured. During his interview, Art told Frankling that he would soon be getting married, and he and his wife would be away for two weeks on their honeymoon.
“Well, if you’re not home,” Frankling snapped, “you’re not going to hear from us, are you?”
“’Holy jeez,’ I thought,” Bond recalls vividly. “I hope to God he doesn’t call while we’re away!”
Continued...
|