Frank Jefferies, Aug. 4, 1874 (Bethlehem, Ind.) - June 14, 1947 (Rochester, Ind.)
VP candidate for Greenback Party (1944)
Running mate with nominee: Leo Charles Donnelly (1889-1958)
Popular vote: 0 (0.00%)
Electoral vote: 0/531
The campaign:
Greenback Party leader John Zahnd did not run a fifth time for President. Instead the 1944 nominee was Leo C. Donnelly, a pastor at Westminster Community Church in Detroit. He was also a fascist sympathizer and an associate of Father Charles Coughlin. Donnelly had run as a member of the Democratic Party for a few public offices in the past.
Donnelly was at one time a medical doctor. A graduate of the Detroit College of Medicine in 1911, he was suspended in 1924 by the Wayne County Medical Society and in the early 1930s his license was revoked by the State of Michigan for "unprofessional and dishonest" conduct.
His license was reinstated in 1947, three years after his Presidential run for office. At the start of May, 1958 he was arrested and charged with seven counts of fraud for basically victimizing vulnerable people using marketing by mail-order for such products as a cure for cancer and anti-radioactive fallout tablets. He was facing the possibility of over 30 years in prison. But before the month was over, he died of a heart attack on May 30, 1958.
Frank Jefferies, his running mate, seems to have been a Republican who was active in real estate.
The Donnelly/Jefferies ticket did not appear on any ballots, although one news account said they filed in Indiana, where the Greenback Party was headquartered (John Zahnd's house). Any votes they earned had to be write-ins.
Election history: none.
Other occupations: newspaper circulation manager, realtor, President of the South Bend Indiana Real Estate Board, soldier in Spanish-American War
Buried: Mount Hope Cemetery (Logansport, Ind.)
Notes:
Member of the Church of Christ.
His health began to fail in 1945. If elected, he would have died in office in 1947.
Sometimes his surname is spelled Jeffers or Jeferies or Jeffries by writers and reporters.
Moved to South Bend, Ind. ca. 1912
