Frank
Bartlett Willis was born December 28, 1871, on a farm near the hamlet of Lewis
Center in Delaware County, Ohio.
He was the son of a Civil War veteran, Vermont-born J.B. Willis and his wife
Lavinia A. (Buell) Willis.
Willis attended the local district school and Galena High School. He
then studied at Ohio Normal University in Ada
(renamed Ohio Northern University in 1902), and studied law. He earned
his degree in 1893 and passed the Ohio bar in
1906. Up until 1906, he was Professor of History and Economics at Ohio
Northern. In 1895 he married Allie Dustin, and a
daughter was born in 1897.
While teaching, Willis became a widely known public speaker. He took
on an active role for the Republican Party, and
between 1900 and 1904 he served two terms in the Ohio House of Representatives.
During this time he also studied law at
Ohio Northern, and passed the Ohio Bar in 1906. He unsuccessfully sought the Republican
nomination in 1904, 1906, and 1908 to
represent the 8th Ohio District in Congress. Willis won the nomination
in 1910 and was re-elected in 1912. In 1915 he
resigned six weeks before his term expired in order to take office as Governor
of Ohio. Willis served a single term as
Governor from 1915 to 1917.
Willis stayed out of office until 1921. At the Republican National Convention
in 1920, it was Willis who put Senator Warren
Harding’s name before the delegates. When Harding undertook to
run for the presidency, Willis became a candidate for
Harding’s vacant seat. He served as a U.S. Senator for seven years.
The senator’s office was involved in rendering many
kinds of services, but in the field of legislation, Willis initiated little.
He devoted himself largely to committee work and
spoke vigorously, but not often, on legislative proposals he regarded as important
to Ohio and the nation.
In 1926 Willis easily won renomination for Senator, but in 1927 President
Coolidge chose not to run for another term.
Willis then announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for President.
He and his friends undertook to get a pro-
Willis Ohio delegation to the National Republican Convention. Eventually,
Herbert Hoover also decided to enter the Ohio
presidential primary, but Willis set out to campaign with great enthusiasm
anyway. On March 30, 1928, he was
waiting to take the platform at the beginning of a rally at Delaware, Ohio,
when a massive cerebral hemorrhage caused his
death. He was 56 years old.
The
College of Law memorialized Frank B. Willis by naming a new seminar classroom
in his honor in 2006. The Willis Room is located in the Law Library and houses
many artifacts and photos from the distinguished alumnus.
