The Man Who Drew History: Franklin McMahon My Father’s Stories by Margot McMahon
With humor, graceful lyrical graphite lines and colorful interpretations of one historical moment after another, my father Franklin McMahon captured his time to tell all of us. In his drawing of the congenial days when Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton debated in the presidential primaries, Dad said, “It looks like a possibility that Obama would become a vice-presidential candidate. Hillary Clinton’s already had that job.” These insightful stories he brought to our dining room table and then to the
The Eternal Optimist, 1921–1938 is Dad’s childhood with his greatest fan, my elusive, elegant, independent and charming grandmother, Bess Franklin McMahon O’Connor. My family stories are outlined by our family history that my sister Michelle and I published in 2011 in the Illinois Genealogical Society Newsletter. Parachuting Artist, 1938–1959 : One afternoon my son, Brendan, and his friend Ian, a WWII buff, listened while I videotaped Dad telling his WWII experience. This conversation outlined stories ex