Alameda County
Biographies
HONORABLE
FRANK MACDONALD OGDEN
Frank
Macdonald Ogden was born in Oakland, California, on July 21, 1895, and passed
away on July 18, 1948. He was the son of Judge Frank Burroughs and Laura
(Macdonald) Ogden.
He attended the Oakland public
schools until the end of his junior year in the Oakland High School, then
completed his studies in a private preparatory school and entered the
University of California in 1913, graduating there from with the degree of B.A.
His legal studies at the University of California’s Boalt
Hall were interrupted in 1917 when he was commissioned second lieutenant of
infantry in the United States Army. He served as an officer throughout the
period of World War I, on duty with the American Expeditionary Forces in
Siberia. In 1919 he was stationed first at the Presidio of San Francisco and
later at Fort McDowell; resigned in January of 1925 with the rank of captain.
While serving as Captain of Infantry, he resumed his study of law (1921) and four
years later was admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of California,
thus becoming the fourth member of his family to be so admitted. His father was
admitted to practice in 1882; his sister, Marguerite, in 1913; and his older
brother, Robert Clarence, in 1917.
Judge Ogden was appointed deputy
district attorney of Alameda County, California, in 1924 and in 1928 to
assistant district attorney. In November of 1930 he was elected Judge of
Superior Court of the State of California, in and for the County of Alameda,
and occupied the same courtroom in the courthouse at Oakland, California, in
which his father had been presiding at the time of his death, October 7, 1918.
Judge Ogden thus became the youngest judge of the Superior Court in the State
of California and continued to discharge the duties of that office until his
death in 1948. During this period he was actively engaged in the Boy Scout
movement, serving as president of Oakland Area Council Boy Scouts of America
for six year and later as member of local and national Executive Boards;
awarded the Silver Beaver Award in 1947.
He was also active in fraternal and
civic affairs; held membership in Live Oak Lodge No. 61 F. and A.M.; Lodge of
Odd Fellows (master); Oakland Lodge of Elks (exalted ruler); American Legion,
Veterans of Foreign Wars; Oakland Chaper (sic) of
American Red Cross; Community Chest; Alameda County Council of Social Agencies
(president, 1947 until his death); California Youth Committee (Northern
California chairman).
He was repeatedly assigned to sit
pro tempore as a Justice of the District Court of Appeal; appointed to State
Judicial Council and served as a member of Committee on Superior Court Rules
and also as chairman of Council’s Northern Committee on the Administration of
Juvenile Justice; presided over many notable and prolonged trials, as the case
of the People of the State of California vs. King, et al.
Judge Ogden married Alice Buteau
in 1919 and they had one daughter, Marguerite (Mrs. Blasdel),
born in November of 1920.
Frank Macdonald Ogden resigned his
offices upon this earth on a Sunday afternoon in July, 1948, as he had
commenced them on a Sunday morning in July 1895.
Transcribed By: Cecelia M. Setty.
Source: “Eminent Californians 1953”,
by Lee E. Johnson & C. W. Taylor. Page 257, C. W. Taylor
Publ., Palo Alto, California, 1953.
© 2014 Cecelia M. Setty.
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