Frank Leonard Brines became a man in the saddle, served his country in World War I, explored the seven seas as a merchant marine and honed his craft as a mechanic and garage owner. Frank started life humbly on the short grass prairie land of the great plains of western Nebraska. He was born 22 May 1897 in Bridgeport, Morrill County, Nebraska (Cheyenne County, Nebraska at the time) the fifth child of eight to John Garrett Brines 1864-1944, a well driller and watch maker and his wife Julia Ann Dunbar 1866-1906. Growing up on his father's ranch he learned self reliance and respect for others.
    When Frank was 9-years-old his mother died unexpectedly from complications in child birth. His father worked two jobs to provide for the family. In 1906 his father met and married a widow named Bertha (nee Blackwell) with children and the two families struggled to get along, Frank's son Earl recalled.
"My father’s account of this phase was that their father had remarried – a widow with a gang of children, and there was so much fighting going on between the two families that they ran away from home," Earl said.
Frank and his older brother Bill hopped the rails and ended up on a ranch near Cheyenne, Wyoming where they learned to herd cattle and other ways of the cowboy.
"He decided he needed some formal schooling and returned to Nebraska," Earl said.
According to family they lived at the edge of town in a squatter's shack, collecting fallen coal on the railroad tracks to burn for heat, and digging horseradish roots to trade shop keepers for food. Their divorced father had taken up ranching in Camp Clarke, Nebraska and employed his two cousins to help with the children and the house work, according to the 1910 census.
"After schooling for a while he returned to the ranch in Wyoming," Earl said. "He acquired a horse from his former boss and rode it to the west coast."
    In California, Frank told of being a stow-away on a tramp steamer.
"When the ship was safely out to sea he turned himself into the captain," Earl said.
The Captain was impressed with Frank's can-do attitude and he quickly become part of the crew, and he even received pay for it.
"Frank became a merchant marine where he got to see the world," his son Earl recalled. "China was pretty memorable."
He went to work for the Dodge Brothers as a plant mechanic.
    In 1918 at the age of 21 he and Bill enlisted in the U.S. Army to fight in World War I. It was late in the war Sept 1918 when they were shipped to the front lines in France, according to his letters home to hid sweetheart Ella Tucker.
"The courtship was in progress prior to his enlistment in the army," Earl said.
    Frank volunteered to be a motorcycle courier. He rode very dangerous missions and learned to repair his own cycle. His brother served in the 88th Infantry and supported French troops in the trenches warding off night raids and gas attacks by the German enemy.
Less than a week after the armistice was signed Frank wrote a letter home stating he was recovering in a military hospital in France.
Earl said he talked about how he was injured once rushing to get an important message out to the front.
"While on a night courier mission he road his motorcycle into a shell crater - dark, lights out, and all of that. Got a bit of hospital time in," Earl said.
He and his brother returned from the war alive.
    Frank worked as a truck driver. He married Ella, a farmer's daughter, and had a great relationship with the Tucker family.
"They were wed shortly after he returned from Europe in the summer of 1919," Earl said.
    In 1920 they were expecting their first child but Ella caught the Spanish flu during a nationwide epidemic. Both she and the unborn child died.
    Ella was buried at the Oregon Trail Memorial Park Cemetery, Bridgeport, Morrill County, Nebraska.
    "After Ella's death Frank had bought several used Ford cars and with some other guys started out cross country to where they had heard cars of any kind were hard to come by, and the market for used cars was hot," Earl remembered. "When the group got to Jensen, Utah they ran into an old friend of Dad's from his cowboy days who was running a garage there, and was looking for a mechanic. And that ended the trip."
    While he was working as a mechanic in Vernal, Utah at the "Red Front Garage" Frank met a courted a local farmer's daughter named Florence Johnson. They were wed by a bishop in the Church of Christ of Ladder Day Saints 31 March 1924 in Uintah, Weber County, Utah. He was 26 and she was 19. The decided to forge a life together in California. Together they had four children: Marion, Frank, Jr. (infant), Carl and Earl. Frank and Florence made their home near the Tucker family in Glendale in the Los Angeles area.
    Frank finally went into business for himself in 1936 and owned his own mechanic shop east of Glendale in Corona, California. In an advertisement in the newspaper Frank offered "a money back guarantee" for his services as a mechanic.
    Frank was a hard working father and a great mechanic. People that knew him said he could tell what was wrong with a car just by the sounds it was making, so many satisfied customers and their friends sought him out.
    In 1958, Frank and Florence decided they wanted a change and handed the keys to the garage business to their son Carl.
    They went to work for the U.S. Forestry Service in the San Bernardino National Forest northeast of Norco. Working as fire look-outs they were assigned to a look-out tower called Strawberry Peak near Twin Peaks. With binoculars in hand they camped out in the twelve foot by twelve foot cabin directing forestry firefighters to wildland fires.
      They also greeted tourists who scaled the long staircase to the top of the 30 foot tower to see the 360 degree views of the forest peaks. Their grandchildren had great memories of visiting the tower.
    About the time Frank was 80-years-old they returned to retired life at the Norco, CA home they built in the 1950's. Located on the side of a hill, this house had a lot of room including a fruit room where Florence kept her canning jars full of fruits and vegetables and a workshop where Frank and his tools as well as a garden in the backyard. They raised yams, red onions, garlic, black-eyed peas, tomatoes, peppers, many different melons, and asparagus in the garden.
    Their son Earl lived in San Joaquin County, California where Frank and Florence passed away.
Frank died 27 June 1989 and Florence 27 Jan 1995. They are buried at Lodi Memorial Cemetery in Lodi, San Joaquin County, Ca.

Sources: Earl Brines, To Seek His Fortune by Anette Brines, US Census Records, WWI Military records, California Death Index 1940-1997, U.S. Social Security Death Index 1935-2014, Western States Marriage Index, 1809-2011. "Garage Owner Nabs Suspected Check Forger" Corona Daily Independent June 3, 1952, Advertisement Corona Daily Independent Jan 28 1938, Find A Grave Memorial# 128859360

Written by cousin Jon Brines

Frank L Brines