Age 29. 990 Washington Street, Dorchester (Boston), MA. Born 7/02/1913, in Boston. Died of carbon monoxide poisoning (death certificate). Civilian clerk, Charlestown Navy Yard, Boston. Known as "Frank." In a party which included Mr. and Mrs. Francis "Frank" and wife Virginia O'Brien, ages 32 and 25 respectively, of Dorchester, both dead, and possibly two others (unnamed). Group attended the big afternoon college football game between Boston College and the College of the Holy Cross at Fenway Park. His father, a Boston Police lieutenant (not present), heard reports that his missing son was wandering the city in a dazed condition, told reporters the following Monday at Southern Mortuary: "People would be more helpful if they wouldn't repeat rumors. Why, that story was telephoned our house several times..." (The Boston Herald, 12/01/1942). Added: "I couldn't see how my boy could have got out of it unscathed." Surgery scar which identified his "otherwise unidentifiable body" (Fire In The Grove, by author John C. Esposito) was the result of an appendectomy assisted on one month prior by a victim in another party, Dr. Gordon Bennett, age 27, of Swampscott, MA. Was a widower, late wife former Helen M. LeHane, married in 1935, in Boston. Wife died in 1937. Survived by a son Francis X., Jr., age 7. Son died in 1950, at age 14, when he fell between two snowplows on Gallivan Boulevard in Dorchester (Boston Traveler, 2/23/1950: "His father...was killed in the Cocoanut Grove fire, and his mother died in childbirth"). Parents Boston Police Lieut. John J. and the late Mrs. Jane Ann (Handricken) Gale. Burial at New Calvary Cemetery, Mattapan (Boston), MA. One of 30 Grove victims interred at New Calvary Cemetery (22 burials) and its adjoining Mount or "Old" Calvary Cemetery, Roslindale (Boston), MA (8 burials), more than at any other single resting grounds. Middle name Xavier.

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