Frank Fratus Square memorial marker. [2013, Dunlap]
U.S.S. Michigan, the battleship on which Carpenter’s Mate Frank Fratus died in July 1918. [U.S. National Archives and Administration / Wikimedia Commons]
[2008, Dunlap]
Frank Basil Fratus was born in the last year of the 19th century. He dwelled at 19 Tremont Street. He did not live past his 19th birthday. Having enlisted in the Navy in 1917, Fratus was serving aboard the battleship U.S.S. Michigan off the coast of Virginia as a carpenter’s mate, third class. On 29 July 1918, he suffered a hemorrhage on board and died. Armistice was only four months away.
Two decades after World War I, with another war looming in Europe, five Provincetown men who had died in service were memorialized in the renaming of five principal intersections: Fratus at Bradford Street Extension and West Vine Street, Manuel Lopes at Railroad Square, Everett McQuillan at Depot Square, Norman Cook at Town Hall Square, and Louis Ferreira at the Turn.
Reporting on the Armistice Day ceremonies in 1938, the Advocate said: “When the parade arrived at the memorial tablet to Frank Fratus, members of the Fratus family were drawn up before the plaque, standing silently in tribute to their late relative. At the base of the tablet lay a bouquet, presented by a friend of the family.”
¶ Last updated on 7 November 2022.
In memoriam
• Frank Fratus (1899-1918)
Find a Grave Memorial No. 159863551.