13-Year-Old Monkey Fire Station Pet

The title of this article was one of the headlines in the October
18, 1936,

Quincy Herald-Whig

. The
three-paragraph article is the only known source of information for this odd
story. The monkey named Satan was removed from the home of Mrs. Frances Fink in
a fire truck to his new home in the basement of the central fire station. It is
not known how long he stayed with the firemen, how long he lived, nor the size
nor kind of monkey he was.

With a name like Satan, we could infer that he was removed for
safety reasons from Mrs. Fink’s boarding house, where he had lived for eleven
years, because of a devilish personality. Or we might suspect that in a
community dotted with churches there must have been some objection from local
clergymen about the monkey’s netherworld-ish name.

Satan certainly seems an unusual choice of name for a pet by
Frances Fink, a woman of considerable social standing who had been educated at
St. Boniface Catholic School and Quincy Notre Dame. Frances was a prominent person
in Quincy and had at least two other pets, both of whom, received newspaper
coverage. She belonged to many fraternal and sororal organizations and
was chosen as the first president of the Eagles Auxiliary in 1927. She later
became head of the Rebekah Lodge, and her name appeared several times over the
years in the Society pages of the

Herald-Whig

for heading, assisting, or
organizing various social organizations and events.

Satan’s name had been “trending” at the time. “Satan” was
used in several songs, books, plays, and radio shows in the 1930s. The radio
serial “The Witch’s Tale” used “Satan” every week during the decade, being the
name of the host’s pet cat. Three movies that year had “Satan” either in the
title, in a song, or as a character name—two of these films were shown in
Quincy at the Orpheum in 1936: “Bengal Tiger.” The tiger was named Satan, and
“Satan Met a Lady” starring Bette Davis.

Irving Berlin was the composer of “Get Thee Behind Me, Satan,”
introduced in the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers film “Follow The Fleet” earlier in
the year. And, coincidentally, Harry Houdini’s widow, Bess, also had a
pet monkey named Satan and had been making the news in Hollywood with her plans
for the final seance attempt to contact Harry’s spirit on Halloween.

We also know that by 1936, Frances had been a widow for
twenty-three years. She was childless and enjoyed having pets, especially ones
that reflected her social status. She was rarely seen in town without her
French poodle which she owned for twenty years. When it died in 1921,
“toothless, deaf and blind,” the December 8, 1921,

Quincy Herald

, printed
a four-paragraph obituary/tribute to her “constant companion,” noting that it
had been “tenderly buried” in a friend’s garden.

Frances Fink owned a second monkey, this one an African ringtail
with the more civil name of Mike, purchased from a Quincy pet store around the
same time she acquired Satan. The two monkeys with apparently different
personalities entertained the boarders in her home at 531 Jersey for three
years. Mike was the focus of two newspaper articles. One story in the March 12,
1925

Herald

–

Whig

was a humorous tale of him removing the hat from
the head of a male boarder who had overlooked that gesture of etiquette and
then scurried back to his cage. Years later he received his own
obituary/tribute. Major J. J. Linton, writer of the

Whig

’s “The
Old Lamplighter…” feature on the paper’s editorial page, was one of Fink’s
boarders. That may explain why her beloved pets received such newspaper
space.

As it had done for Frances Fink’s poodle, the

Herald-Whig

devoted four paragraphs to Mike’s life and personality. He was described as
“remarkably affectionate” and a favorite among neighborhood children and the owner’s
friends. The writer of the obituary used such detail that he must have attended
the monkey’s burial, which he described in the May 28, 1928,

Herald

–

Whig

with elegance: “In a neat coffin, his head resting on the softest of
pillows, lying as though in deep slumber, his body lies in a grave surmounted
by an umbrageous lilac bush at the close of a life that brought only happiness
into many scores of human lives.”

A sad irony in the Frances Fink story is that the obituaries of
her pets were longer than hers. Her obituary in the September 19, 1939,

Herald-Whig

consisted of just two paragraphs and barely eighty words. She received none of
the florid language that her poodle and monkey did upon their passings.
Even most of the usual vital facts were absent: no cause of death listed; no
age; no birthdate; no marriage date; no mention of the boarding house or her
pets. By comparison, over two hundred words had been typed to honor her
poodle and around three hundred for monkey Mike, who also received the longest
headline—nineteen words spread over three lines. The six-word headline of his
owner’s obituary read: “Frances Fink, Widely Known Quincyan, Dies.”

The Fink boarding house is gone now, the property currently a
parking lot. Frances Fink was buried in Woodland Cemetery next to her husband.
The headstone does not list her year of birth, leaving the question of her
age—like so many other questions in this story, unanswered. The current Quincy
Notre Dame High School has no record of the young Frances’ years of
attendance. She had no survivors.

Satan never received a tribute in print like the other Fink pets. We
do not know if he ever saw his former owner again after his removal from her
house. The Quincy Fire Department has no photographs of the 1936 Vermont Street
crew posing with their pet primate nor any record of his residency. Nothing is
known of his demise nor burial. It all happened once upon a time in Quincy less
than a hundred years ago.

Greg Kreinberg is a Quincy native who worked in his father’s grocery store and graduated from Quincy College. Since moving to Chicago he has been a full-time educator and a part-time writer.

Sources

“13-Year-Old Monkey Fire Station Pet.” Quincy Herald-Whig,
October 18, 1936, p. 16.

“Bess Conjures Satan.” WildaboutHoudini.com.

“Confucius, Oldest of Dogs, Passes Away Peacefully.” Quincy
Daily Herald, December 8, 1921, 2.

“Funerals: Frances Fink.” Quincy Herald-Whig, September 22,
1939, p. 14.

“Get Thee Behind Me, Satan.”
Secondhandsongs.com.

“It Happened In Quincy—The Monkey Who Gave a Lesson In Good
Manners.” Quincy Daily

Herald, March 12, 1925, p. 6.

“Mike Was a Good Old Monkey and Now That His Days Are Over He is
Being Given Fitting

Burial.” Quincy
Herald-Whig, May 26, 1928, p. 8.

“Movie Bills.” Quincy Herald-Whig, October 2, 1936, p. 7.

“Movies.” Quincy Herald-Whig, October 23, 1936, p.
7.

“Mrs. Frances Fink Heads Auxiliary of Eagles Aerie.” Quincy
Herald-Whig, April 14, 1927, p. 4.

“Mrs. Frances Fink, Widely Known Quincyan, Dies.” Quincy
Herald-Whig, September 19, 1939,

12.

“Quincy Rebekah Lodge Has Annual Election.” Quincy Herald-Whig,
December 16, 1934, p. 9.

“The Witch’s Tale.” Wikipedia.com.