Teacher, lawyer, bureaucrat, and lobbyist, Frank William Kuehl, the only son and eldest of the five children of Albert and Anna (Lorenz) Kuehl to reach adulthood, was born at Tacoma, Washington, on September 14, 1894. Frank's sisters were Wilma, born 1898, Anne, born 1903, Violet, born 1913, and Marguerite, born 1915. The family moved to Fountain City, Wisconsin, in 1896 in search of employment for Albert and to be closer to Anna's family. In this predominately German community Albert Kuehl, a German immigrant, and his wife, the daughter of German immigrants, purchased a bowling alley and saloon from which the family earned its livelihood. Frank Kuehl graduated from the local high school in 1912 and matriculated at La Crosse Normal School in 1914. Shortly after graduation, he became principal of the Melrose, Wisconsin, public high school. From 1915 to 1918, he taught at Iron Mountain, Michigan, first as supervisor of night school commercial courses and later as principal of the high school.
Although a pacifist and a strong believer in American neutrality in the European conflict in 1917, Kuehl served in the Army when called following United States entrance into World War I. He attended officers' school at Lexington, Kentucky, where he completed the air artillery course. He was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel prior to his discharge in 1919. After his tour of duty, Kuehl entered the University of Wisconsin where he received a bachelor of arts degree in commerce in 1921 and a law degree (LL.B.) in 1923.
An essay Kuehl wrote while a student at the University brought him to the attention of the state's most prominent Progressives, including Wisconsin's Senator Robert M. “Fighting Bob” La Follette and Governor John J. Blaine. The essay, articulating Kuehl's belief that La Follette and the Progressives still controlled state politics, led to his employment in January 1923 as executive clerk to Governor Blaine. Six months later Kuehl became the governor's executive secretary, a position he held until January 1927, when Blaine took his seat in the U.S. Senate. Kuehl developed a close working relationship with, and a deep personal friendship for, Blaine which endured until the latter's death on April 16, 1934.
In late January 1927, following Blaine's election to the U.S. Senate, Kuehl was appointed Assistant Attorney General for the State of Wisconsin. During his six and one-half year tenure, Kuehl dealt with school district loans and cases involving the Commissioner of Public Lands, most notably the Lost Island Case, which was argued against the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and the Interior. As the economy deteriorated in late 1930 and 1931, Governor Philip F. La Follette asked Kuehl to examine legal questions involving defaulting banks. This led to his temporary appointment, from April to October 1932, to the State Banking Department as Stabilization Director. He was responsible for developing a plan to steady the wobbly condition of many of Wisconsin's banks, and to draft legislation to protect against future bank failures. While with the Banking Department, Kuehl also served as a member of the Banking Review Board and of the Board of Deposits. He resigned from the Banking Review Board in 1932 in reaction to what he perceived as that body's growing partisanship. During his years in state service, Kuehl was appointed to a wide variety of committees, among them: the State Tornado Relief Committee for Northwestern Wisconsin Cyclone Sufferers, 1922; the Special Committee on Indian Affairs, July 1931 to 1933; and the Governor's Unemployment Committee, 1932. For a brief time around 1929, Kuehl formed a legal partnership with Charles Crownhart, Jr.
In August 1933, Kuehl was appointed to the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) as legal counsel to John J. Blaine, then a member of the RFC's Board of Governors. He worked with Blaine until February 1934 when he was transferred to the Legal Division in charge of self-liquidating cases. While with the RFC, Kuehl participated actively in the development, implementation and collection of loans for mining, drainage, irrigation, railroad and bridge building projects. He remained with the agency as counsel until 1954 shortly before the agency's sunset legislation took effect.
From 1954 to 1959, Kuehl was employed as attorney and lobbyist for the Washington, D.C., office of the American Medical Association. He planned to retire in 1959 but was persuaded to return to federal service. On May 10, 1959, he became Chief of the Division of Welfare and Pension Reports in the Bureau of Labor Standards. While serving in this capacity, Kuehl witnessed the dramatic growth of the program. As a result of a 1962 merger of the Welfare and Pension Reports Division with the Division of Labor-Management Reports, Kuehl became Assistant to the Director of the newly-created Office of Labor-Management and Welfare-Pension Reports. On September 30, 1964, at the age of seventy and after twenty-six years of federal civil service, Kuehl retired.
Shortly after his marriage to Jane Sattre, Frank Kuehl began purchasing stock in the First National Bank of Rice Lake, which his father-in-law, Olaf M. Sattre served as a major stockholder and member of the Board of Directors. After the deaths of Sattre and his wife Amelia, Kuehl, his wife and his sister-in-law, Ellen Sattre Beaton, each inherited several shares of the bank's stock that together formed the largest block of family-owned shares in the bank. Later, as a member of the board of directors of the bank, Kuehl energetically pursued the possibility of a merger with the First Wisconsin Bankshares Corporation. A merger was consummated in 1968.
As a member of St. Paul's Lutheran Church, Washington, D.C., and as a result of his participation on many of its committees and councils, Kuehl, along with several other parishioners, sought completion of a Peter J. Muhlenberg Memorial. Muhlenberg was a German-born Lutheran pastor who had fought alongside American colonists in the American Revolution. The memorial in his honor was erected in 1978.
Kuehl's interest in politics clearly manifested itself in the 1924 elections. He assisted both in the Robert M. La Follette Presidential campaign and the John J. Blaine campaign for governor of Wisconsin. In addition, Kuehl was elected an alternate to the Republican National Convention that year. Again in 1926 he took part in Blaine's senatorial campaign. While Kuehl did attend the 1928 Republican National Convention, his most noteworthy political activity of that year was as secretary of the Progressive Republican Al Smith for President Club. After he moved to Washington in 1934, Kuehl became less active in Wisconsin politics though his interest never waned. He continues to follow and contribute to political campaigns and the Republican Party.
Marion Jeannette (Jane) Sattre was born on May 10, 1898 to O.M. (Olaf) and Amelia (Hoskins) Sattre at Rice Lake, Wisconsin. She attended area schools and graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1922. While at the university, she met Frank Kuehl. They were married at her parents' Rice Lake home on December 29, 1923. The couple made their home in Madison where their two daughters, Marion and Katherine, were born. The family moved to Washington, D.C., in 1935. Marion Kuehl married Donald Korst in 1948. They had three children, Ellen, Donald, and Elizabeth. She married William Applegate, Col., U.S.A., Ret. in 1980. He died in 1985. Katherine Kuehl and Edward B. Layne, Jr., whom she married in 1955, had three daughters, Denise, Jeannette, and Martha. Edward Layne died in an automobile accident in 1981. The Kuehls traveled extensively, their trips culminating in a family cruise to the Caribbean in 1973 to celebrate their fiftieth wedding anniversary. Jane Kuehl died on October 5, 1976, after a lengthy illness. Frank W. Kuehl has lived in Washington, D.C., since his retirement.
