by Larry Berman
The president spoke about how Bud had given “honest, caring, steadfast friendship. His letter to our daughter about what her parents tried to do for America is one of our family’s most cherished possessions. It is the symbol of everything he was as a man, a leader, and a friend. And so today we say goodbye to the sailor who never stopped serving his country, never stopped fighting for the men and women in uniform, never stopped being the conscience of the Navy.”66
After the service, with the U.S. Navy Band leading the way, the procession walked from the chapel across the Naval Academy grounds to the cemetery. The sun broke through the chapel windows just before they departed, and Jim Zumwalt told those close by “it was if God had showed my dad where the climate control switch was and Dad pulled it.” As sailors fired nineteen guns at five-second intervals in salute, Joe Muharsky thought that Elmo had asked God to turn off the rain in order to say, “Welcome home, Dad.”
Then, near the crest of a hill overlooking the blue waters of the Severn River, where he had first learned seamanship in the class of ’43, Bud Zumwalt was laid to rest. The single-word inscription on his tombstone encapsulated his life, REFORMER.
The next morning, far from the pomp of the previous day’s remembrance, Bud’s brother Jim returned to the cemetery in order to deliver a personal eulogy. Turning to the grave site and surrounded by his close-knit family, Jim saluted his brother one last time with the words “Bravo Zulu, Admiral Zumwalt. Well done!”67
CHAPTER 2
THE ROAD FROM TULARE TO ANNAPOLIS
Few people in my home town would have predicted in 1938 that the Class Valedictorian of Tulare Union High School, locally famous for his humorous pranks and hell-bent ways, would someday achieve unparalleled acclaim as the Navy’s top officer.
—JAMES G. ZUMWALT, BUD’S BROTHER1
The attending physician at Stanford University Hospital joked about the nine-pound, thirteen-ounce newborn having the largest set of eyebrows he had ever seen.2 Elmo Russell Zumwalt, Jr., the son of two physicians, Dr. Elmo Russell Zumwalt and Dr. Frances Frank Zumwalt, entered the world on November 29, 1920. “I well remember the day in 1920,” recalled his father, “following a long drive to San Francisco, and viewing a very ruddy faced, compact, chesty individual with a dark head of hair soon to be named by your sister, who was then twenty-months old, who being told ‘this is your brother,’ enunciated ‘Bud-dy.’ ”3
Saralee’s nickname stuck. While in primary school, her brother went by the moniker Buddy, but by the time he reached junior high school, Elmo Russell Zumwalt, Jr., introduced himself as Bud and asked others to “call me Bud.” This usually posed little problem, although it generated criticism from old-guard retired admirals who objected to such informality. Representative of the traditionalists’ viewpoint was retired rear admiral Colby Guequierre Rucker, who criticized Admiral Zumwalt for using “Bud” when signing communications to the naval community, especially those junior in rank to him. “I can assure it does not arise from a misplaced desire on my part to be overly ‘buddie’ with anyone,” replied Bud. “With a name like Elmo, as you may have found in your own experience, one must look for alternatives where he can.”4
Coincidentally, St. Elmo is the patron saint of sailors, but in this case the name Elmo was selected by Bud’s grandmother for his father from one of the most popular books of the nineteenth century, written by Augusta Jane Evans. The protagonist in the novel St. Elmo transformed himself from a rather contemptible individual into a dashing hero. The book was so popular that dozens of southern plantations, local schools, cocktail drinks, and newborn children were given the name Elmo.5
Raised in the city of Tulare in the fertile San Joaquin Valley, Bud and his siblings enjoyed an almost idyllic pastoral life. Founded in 1872 by the Southern Pacific Railroad as headquarters for the valley, Tulare was a small town of approximately seven thousand proud and close-knit people, who despite differences in background were vitally interested in and supportive of one another.6 In a letter to a former teacher, Bud recalled how growing up in a small town provided him “the basic serenity with which to survive.”7
Bud was a fourth-generation Californian. His great-grandfather had been one of the area’s first settlers, and the Zumwalt name was a familiar one in Tulare County. Genealogists trace all Zumwalts in America as descendants of Andreas zum Wald, who boarded the SS Virtuous Grace in the port of Rotterdam, disembarking in the port of Baltimore in 1737.8 After marrying a Swiss-born wife, Mary, Andreas farmed a few acres near York, Pennsylvania. Five children were born of that marriage, but after Mary’s death, Andreas sent back to Switzerland for another wife. Eventually settling in Virginia, Andreas and Ann Regina had six children of their own, one daughter and five sons. One of those sons was named Jacob, from whom Bud Zumwalt is descended.
Following the war for independence, Jacob moved to Missouri in 1798, building a fort northwest of the Missouri River that provided refuge for many families during the War of 1812. The ruins of Fort Zumwalt, near O’Fallon, Missouri, are today preserved as a National Monument. In 1849 one of Jacob’s great-grandchildren, James Brown Zumwalt, orphaned at the age of three and a blacksmith by trade, joined a wagon train to California, eventually settling in the Sacramento Valley. After working in the mines at Murder’s Bar on the Middle Fork of the American River, James settled in Red Bluff, where he opened a blacksmith shop. In 1860, James married Lydia DeWitt, who had also crossed the continent by wagon, from Kentucky in 1852.9
In 1864 the family moved to Grand Island, Colusa County, purchasing 160 acres of land for farming. Fourteen years later, in search of flood-free fertile farmland, the family packed their belongings and traveled by wagon to Tulare, where James purchased 900 acres of land a few miles northwest of the city line for five dollars an acre. Within a few years, he was farming alfalfa and fruit trees, primarily raisin grapes. The land was also home to 350 head of horses, cattle, and hogs and a dairy of 80 cows. During the summer, they grazed the cattle in the Sierras in an area identified today on topographical maps as Zumwalt Meadows, along the banks of the Kings River in Kings Canyon National Park.10 His plantation-style home in Tulare became a showplace, known as the Palace Ranch of the San Joaquin Valley.11
James and Lydia needed a large home for their eleven children, one of whom was James Eleazar Zumwalt, who later married Mabel Ford. Their only son, Elmo Russell Zumwalt, Bud’s father, was born at the Palace Ranch in 1892.12 James Zumwalt worked as a schoolteacher, earning a salary of $75 a week, and young Elmo began school in the small town of Dixon, near Davis and Sacramento. “Dad had a school out in the country about five miles and used a bike to make the trip,” recalled Elmo.13 The family lived without electricity or an indoor bath. “I remember the first stationary bathtub brought into the house and the thrill on the day the house was wired for electricity that had been brought to town and we mounted an old Edison carbon light bulb that gave about a twenty watt light, a tremendous advance over the coal oil lamps.”
When James was offered a better teaching job, the family relocated to Richmond, just across the bay from San Francisco. James later became principal of Lincoln High School, the first of its type in Richmond. Elmo was one of seven students in the third graduating class from Richmond High. He intended to study dentistry, which required going to San Francisco for a three-year course of study, but his father’s counsel was that his son would be much better off at UC Berkeley. Elmo accepted the advice and enrolled as a freshman in 1911. Required by the registrar to put down a field of study, Elmo wrote medicine, because it was the field closest to his previous career interest. After two years of premed classes, Elmo needed a break and dropped out of college, taking a job working on the Santa Fe Railroad in Richmond. Fourteen months later, he returned to Berkeley as a premed student, buttressed by a savings account of $500 from a monthly wage of $76 working for the railroad.
While on the Berkeley campus, Elmo met Frances Frank, another premed student, whose family resided in Los Angeles. By all acc
ounts, they took an immediate liking to each other and quickly fell in love. Intent on finishing their respective medical degrees, Elmo attended the University of California San Francisco Medical School while Frances returned to Los Angeles to attend the University of Southern California Keck Medical School. Frances and Elmo wrote each other regularly but did not see each other until Frances started her residency at Children’s Hospital in San Francisco in 1917. In that same year, Elmo was commissioned second lieutenant in the Army Medical Corps and sent to Fort McDowell on Angel Island.
Lieutenant Elmo Russell Zumwalt and Frances Frank were married in Richmond’s First Christian Church on Elmo’s birthday, February 7, 1918. It was the city’s first military wedding, attended by over 150 guests, although noticeably absent were the bride’s parents. With a large American flag spread above the pulpit, the couple approached the altar to the music of Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March,” exchanged vows to the soft strains of “Sunshine of Your Smile,” and departed to the “Wedding March” from Lohengrin.14
Following a brief honeymoon, the newlyweds moved into a cottage on Angel Island, where Elmo was stationed. The two doctors started their medical careers in San Francisco, but Frances soon became pregnant. The tranquility of Tulare appealed to them, as did the idea of returning to the place of Elmo’s birth to practice medicine. “Neither your mother or I enjoyed SF and we cast our lot in Tulare for a few years,” wrote Elmo to his children. “I remember driving there with a new Buick, no money, and two weeks later Saralee arrived.”15
Dr. Elmo Zumwalt’s arrival in Tulare was big enough news to make the front page of the Daily Tulare Register—NEW DOCTOR TO LOCATE HERE: DR. ZUMWALT.16 Setting up practice in the old Ryan Building, “Doc Zumwalt” was a general practitioner who became one of the most respected and beloved men in Tulare. Frances Zumwalt did not practice in a formal sense, but mothers started bringing their children to see “Doc Frances” as a pediatric doctor at home. Before long, mothers and babies seemed to always be in their home.
Devotion to public service characterized Doc Zumwalt’s life. “I well recall that more evenings than not he returned home from a difficult day to have a quick meal with us before departing to meet with one of two school boards, to meet with the scouting council, or to attend to miscellaneous community chores,” recalled Bud.17 Elmo served as city health officer, county health officer, school board member, Rotarian, and Boy Scout leader. He was also elected mayor of Tulare. He served his country in two wars, volunteering to return to army service in World War II, reentering as a captain and returning to Tulare in 1945 as a full colonel. Tularians recognized him as the complete citizen. “Tulare can offer everlasting thanks to its lucky star that Elmo R. Zumwalt, Sr., saw fit to return in 1919 to the place of his birth—and then spent much of the rest of his life helping make it the fine community it is today.”18
One of the cherished moments in Bud’s life came when he and his seventy-nine-year-old father returned to Tulare for “Zumwalt Day.” The city renamed a park in honor of both of them, even unveiling a special Z-gram for the occasion. Four thousand citizens turned out to acknowledge the family’s lifelong service to the community and nation. “I have searched the world over and have never found another more worthy, in my judgment, of being called The Good Samaritan,” said Bud of his father.19 In Zumwalt Park are two plaques, side by side, dedicating the park to Dr. Elmo R. Zumwalt, Sr., and Admiral Elmo Russell Zumwalt, Jr. Following Elmo’s death, the inscription on his plaque read: “He dedicated his life to his fellow man, to his country and to his profession. With his ashes scattered over this land he loved so well.”20
Little was known about Frances Frank except for what she told people. That story began with the birth of Frances Pearl in Burlington, Vermont, on December 12, 1892, to French-Canadian parents. When she was three months old, her entire family died from smallpox. Frances was taken in by the neighbors and raised under their surname, Frank. By the early 1900s, she had moved west with the Franks to Los Angeles.21 The Zumwalt children recall their mother being very guarded about her childhood, always managing to divert conversation. “She seldom spoke of her early childhood,” recalled Saralee, “but I did learn that when she was a toddler, both her parents died in some kind of epidemic. She was taken in by a family who had befriended her folks at the time they came to Vermont.”22
The story that Frances was born to French-Canadian parents in Vermont who died in a smallpox epidemic and was then adopted by the Frank family in Burlington is false. Extensive research conducted by Saralee’s son, Richard Crowe, combined with DNA testing, has solved that mystery, but spawned others. The Frank family was Jewish and immigrated to America in 1890 from a part of Russia that is now Lithuania. Frances was one of six children born to Julius and Sarah Frank.
For the first ten years of her life, Frances lived in Burlington, Vermont. The Franks then moved for a short time to Canada before settling in a newly established Jewish community in Los Angeles known as Boyle Heights. The Franks were deeply religious orthodox Jews, and Yiddish and English were spoken in their home. When Frances and Elmo married in 1918, the Frank family was not present. The marriage began a lifelong estrangement in which Frances shut the Frank family out of her Zumwalt life. The estrangement appears to center on the Franks being tradition-bound religious conservatives who told their daughter that if she married outside the faith, she would be dead to them. Sarah Frank’s 1933 will, updated in 1940, probated upon Sarah’s death, sent a clear message: “To my daughter, Frances Zumwalt, of Tulare, Calif., the sum of Ten Dollars ($10.00). I am purposely leaving no more to her for personal and sufficient reasons, and may God forgive her.”23
Away from home for the first time at Berkeley, Frances found freedom from the strict religious upbringing that she found so stifling. By marrying Elmo, Frances divorced herself from her parents and chose to hide her Jewish roots forever. It seems that Frances made up the entire adoption story and never discussed her Frank family—nor introduced them—to her Zumwalt family, even though they lived just hours apart in the same state. Saralee occasionally asked her mother about the Frank family and her life as a child. “Frances curtly replied that she was disowned when she married Elmo and there was nothing to discuss.”24 Both Frances and Elmo went to great lengths to hide the truth from their children. Even after Frances’s death and his own remarriage, Elmo never told his children the truth. There is ample evidence that Frances’s siblings were aware of their Zumwalt family. On January 10, 1971, Bud received a letter from Anna Rich, Frances’s younger sister, who wrote that “as your mother’s younger sister, I feel that I stood in for her in sharing the rewards of your success.”25
The DNA results raise an interesting issue with respect to Bud’s navy career. He remains the nation’s youngest CNO, but because his mother was Jewish, he is a Jew by birth and can be considered the navy’s first Jewish CNO, replacing his dear personal friend Admiral Jeremy Michael Boorda, who also married out of his faith. It was Bud’s call to Boorda at the behest of Dov Zakheim that began the process of creating a privately funded Jewish Center and chapel at the United States Naval Academy.26 “Helping to create a Jewish chapel for the Naval Academy was typical of Bud. It was another case of reversing trends and creating new ones,” observed Zakheim.
Until Bud was about eight years old, the family resided in a small two-bedroom, single-bath bungalow at 136 North H Street, across from the Congregational Church in Tulare. Jim recalled the house being surrounded by huge trees and shrubbery, with a single large brown turkey fig in the yard, along with a grove of bamboo.27 The family of six quickly outgrew the H Street home and at the beginning of the Depression in 1929 moved to a much larger home on the other side of town.28
Sycamore Avenue was the nicest avenue in Tulare, and 854 Sycamore was a stately residence with a trimmed Bermuda lawn and colorful flower beds with zinnias, roses, azaleas, and irises. Built in 1906 at a time when workers took personal pride in craftsmanship, the home reflected the architectu
ral style of the era—a large screened front porch, separate garage, hardwood floors of oak, redwood, and cedar, a large living room and formal dining room, separate reading room, large kitchen and eating nook, three bedrooms, a huge fireplace, a cellar, and an attic.
The children loved their new home, especially in spring and early summer as the sycamores’ green leaves cast a wide swath of shade over the street. From their bedroom, they could smell the distinctive aroma from Giannini Winery two miles north. Sundays were reserved for formal family dinners. With guests sitting around the huge mahogany dining table on mahogany chairs stuffed with horsehair and covered with gold upholstery, dinner was overseen by Frances. Out came the fine china and silverware, otherwise stored in a matching armoire and chest with intricate soft-green inlaid figures representing classical Chinese scenes. A bell was placed alongside Frances’s setting, “which she rang at the end of each course,” recalled Jim. The family’s longtime housekeeper and maid, Sebelia Hamilton, then cleared the table for the next offering.
Frances had more than food on her agenda for these family gatherings. She was determined that her children learn proper dinner manners and social etiquette, and they were schooled in the art of carrying on dinner conversation. Years later, after attending a special dinner at the home of the Naval Academy’s chaplain, Bud proudly reported that all the hours practicing manners and social graces at Sunday dinner had paid off. He impressed everyone, most especially the young lady he was courting.
Elmo was a staunch Republican and one of President Herbert Hoover’s strongest supporters in the elections of 1928 and 1932. In November 1935, local Republican leaders brought Hoover, then an ex-president, through Tulare and arranged for a dinner at the Zumwalt home.29 In the days preceding the retinue’s arrival, the home was full of people cleaning rugs, walls, dinnerware, waxing the hardwood floors and polishing the silver. Gardeners manicured the lawn, eradicating all weeds and crabgrass. The ex-president’s group included Mrs. Hoover, their son, and a number of aides and spouses. Bud and Saralee were invited to meet the ex-president. Tulare was a staunchly Democratic community, and Hoover was extremely unpopular among locals. Following the visit, Bud and Jim were ridiculed at school, suffering the taunts of children that they were rich capitalists with little empathy for the common people.30