Frances Howard: Here we are in Doland, South Dakota, a little town of 500 people.

This is where my father had his first drug store, where I was born, and where we lived up until about the age of high school.

The Depression hit us very hard, and soon there were no customers for the store. I remember the day my father came home and said to my mother, "The banks are taking our house. We don't have a house."

My mother cried.

It was the first time that my father cried, this was a tragic instance. But we picked ourselves up and went to Huron, a town of 14,000, and there my father began his business all over again, the drugstore.

Harry Truman was a frequent visitor to Humphrey's Drug Store, which was a Democratic center, and that little town was so closely knit that you felt the pain of other people and felt the joy of other people.

[Citizen Frances]

[A Celebration of Francis Humphrey Howard]

Frances Howard: I think that, to feel valuable is important, many old people are discarded. One of the reasons it's important to continue to work as long as you're able, as long as you have a good mind, and as long as you can make your body go, work, because that gives value to your life.

In 1938, I received a degree of Liberal Arts from George Washington University, that was the high point in my life. I was involved in every activity from writing to debate to declamation at George Washington University.

It's a long jump between Huron, South Dakota, to the great Library of Medicine, one of the great medical treasures of this world. It's a great place to be.

Lister Hill led the fight for this building along with my brother, Hubert Humphrey and Mr. Michael, so we are the inheritors of a great gift and I love this institution, the Library of Medicine, just as much as I loved working with Eleanor Roosevelt.

This picture of Eleanor Roosevelt and myself was taken at the airport in Huron, South Dakota. She came to Huron to speak to the farmers about the United Nations and the specialized agencies.

She was really working very hard to make the American people conscious of the worth of the U.N. Her life was dedicated to this, and I became a communicator on the United Nations along with her.

Well, I recall very vividly the day that Mrs. Roosevelt called our office at the Federation of Churches and asked me to come for an interview.

I never saw the letter of recommendation, ever, even though I went through the files to find it. When I arrived at the White House, I was of course, as anybody would be, terrified that I wouldn't get the job, and I was interviewed in the green room, either the green room or the blue room, I can't remember which now.

I sat there quietly, waiting for her, she came in, she asked me the usual questions about my background, what my interests were, and I thought the interview went pretty well, and I got up, ready to leave, and she said, "Miss Humphrey, won't you sit down again, I have a question to ask you."

So I didn't know what was coming. She said, very quietly, "What do you think is the greatest sin in the world?" I thought, "How could this be this kind of question?"

And I had my hands of the chair, just as I have them now, and I went through all the ten commandments one by one on my fingers, and I knew I was losing the job right away, I was terrified.

She could see this, she said, "No, those are all bad sins, but there's one worse than any other, and your state of South Dakota was one of the first ones to commit this sin."

And then I was really lost.

She said, after I couldn't answer, she said, "It's greed. Greed! During the Depression and prior to that, the farmers in the Dakotas and farmers all up and down Texas, so forth, plowed every bit of soil, they never put anything back, they never had any stewardship, they just took and took and never returned anything to that soil."

"And," she said, "That is what I mean by the greatest sin in the world. Taking away something and never replacing it."

Ralph Bunch, of course, was at the United Nations as the head of the U.N.-appointed secretaries of the United Nations, and this is a picture in New York of Frances Howard giving him a peace pipe from Minnesota.

This is a picture of Marian Anderson with Max Rabb and myself, part of the United States Commitee for Refugees, which was a very important organization in dealing with refugees after World War II, and my brother Hubert Humphrey was helpful in legislation for bringing refugees from Europe into America.

I had the opportunity to meet Elvis Presley. He was lots of fun, he knew about my brother's position in the United States Senate. We were in the studio, on the set, and I had as many as about thirty or forty pictures, and, thinking they were taking up extra space, I threw them away, but this one I did keep.

But there's only one Elvis. One of the most gratifying parts of my life, of course, was working with the children in the underdeveloped countries, or as we say today,  developing countries.

It was called Public Law 480, in which foods from America were brought to Latin America, Food for Peace, it was called, and I headed that program in the Department of State for a while.

Another very interesting and moving person in my life was Dona Felisa Rincón de Gautier, she was the mayor of San Juan for thirty years.

A woman from the Americas, and she set a great precedent, she was known as one of the great ladies of the hemisphere.

Here we are, these people still live in Washington, Ymelda Dixon, the daughter of Senator Chavez from New Mexico; Suzy Long, whose husband was a Congressman from Maryland, where I lived with my children for a long period of time; myself; and Baroness Stackleberg.

Proud and happy, indeed, proud and happy, following the election of President Lyndon Baines Johnson and Hubert Humphrey to the White House.

We were always friends from the very day, I tried to do everything that Hubert did, he was my idol and of course when he was elected, we had a very good relationship because he had concern for many of the same things that I was interested in; helping people, foreign aid.

But he was a great leader and he shared his experiences and his offices with me, he was always attending to my needs, we were very close. And I lost a friend as well as a brother when he passed away with cancer in 1978.  [Image of Hubert H. Humphrey surrounded by several other individuals.]

My daughter, Anne, was very active in social causes, this is her attendance at the Pearl Buck Benefit for Eurasian children.

My son and my daughter-in-law are the prides of my life. They are Judge Howard, now, and Julie works with health care in Minneapolis, Minnesota, this is at their wedding.

[images of Frances Howard with Members of Congress, Senators, U.S. Presidents, and other notable individuals.]

Well, I can hardly believe that I'm 85 because I want to do all of the things that I'd done before and more.

It's a great thing that we've got to do in this century ahead of us is making individuals feel that they really count, that they may be a small part, you know, of the social system, but that part is so important.

[Thank You, Frances]

[Special thanks to the Audiovisual Program Development Branch of the Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications]

[The National Library of Medicine Bethesda, Maryland, 1999]