Frank Garson Family Papers

Frank Garson was born Frank Gottesman in a small village in Austria on November 5, 1886. He was the youngest of fifteen children and his childhood was dominated by the spirit of independence. His father was a timber merchant and was a noted benefactor and communal leader. On Saturday afternoons, his father would lecture groups on various religious subjects as he was highly educated in Hebrew. At the age of 12, Frank began learning the Talmud. These teachings influenced him the rest of his life. Frank immigrated to America when he was 17 years old. He landed on the East Side of New York not knowing a work of English. He quickly picked up the language, however, and had an urge to study law. He enrolled in night school and for six years he worked during the day and studied at night. At the age of 21, he married nineteen year old Gussie Fox, a successful young business woman of New York. When Frank was 23, he decided to become a manufacturer of wash dresses. He attended a school for designing during the evenings until he mastered all the fundamentals. After working with several manufacturers, he decided to go into business for himself. In 1917, he opened his own firm in Atlanta that specialized in making brassieres. The Lovable Brassiere Company soon became recognized as one of the foremost manufacturers of its kind in America. All the meanwhile, Frank was an active member of the Atlanta Jewish community. On September 13, 1955, he died following a heart attack in San Juan, Puerto Rico at the age of 68.