2025 YIR: New Biography Examines Life of Lucille Selig Frank

The 110th anniversary of the lynching of Leo Frank coincided with publication of, “I Am A Georgia Girl,” a biography of his wife and widow, Lucille Selig Frank.

“My goal with writing this book is to tell Lucille’s truth that no one really seemed to care about when she was alive,” author Ann Hite told the AJT. “Pretty much most wanted all that happened to Leo … 110 years ago, to go away, fade into the background, and be forgotten. I couldn’t let that happen.”

Hite’s fascination with the story began more than 50 years earlier, as a 9-year-old, hearing her grandmother describe seeing Leo Frank’s body hanging from the tree in the Marietta woods where he was lynched at sunrise on Aug. 17, 1915. Hite’s grandmother, then just 6 years old, was brought by her father from their home in Forsyth County, as some 3,000 people came to the site, many in a festive mood. Frank’s body was left hanging for hours before it was removed.

The book, published in September by Mercer University Press, was a change of pace for Hite, the author of more than a dozen works of fiction, most set in and around Black Mountain, N.C., and involving ghosts or spirits.

“The newspapers painted Lucille as a weak hysteric, like they did most women at the time,” Hite said. “Yet, she wrote two letters to the newspapers at the time Leo was going to trial for Mary Phagan’s murder. The first letter addressed Hugh Dorsey, the prosecutor of Leo’s case, for his handling or mistreatment of Minola McKnight, the Seligs’ cook, while getting her statement. When Dorsey answered her back in the same papers, he played her concerns down, marginalizing her views. Lucille promptly wrote a second letter, firing back her thoughts. At the time, ladies were not to have opinions. Lucille did and voiced them. She went on to fight tirelessly to save her husband’s life and prove his innocence.”