Frank 'How Many' Carroll -- Entrepreneur

Born as Missouri dismantled lawful enslavement, Frank Carroll was among the first generation born in freedom. His parents, Abram and Mary, had been enslaved by legendary Gen. Nathaniel W. Watkins, serving their master on his Jackson property. When freedom came, Watkins' former slaves were offered no assets of acreage or a mule. The large family eked out a livelihood as waged farm laborers in Cape Girardeau Township. What latitude of self-determination did Cape Girardeau's majority community allow young Frank when he came of age?

Uninspired by farming, young Frank's entrepreneur spirit and self-confident personality enabled him to carve out a niche business and be his own boss. He purchased crates of fruits at Cape's steamboat landing. Tropically grown bananas, oranges, limes and lemons became his stock and trade. His one-man business plan evolved to peddle fruits, candy, pies and hot tamales, as seasons dictated, for 50 years. From street corners and door-to-door delivery to homes, offices and businesses, he sold goods throughout the town. His legendary trademark was his dynamic, vocal broadcast, delivered -- by many accounts -- in a distinctive singsongy tenor voice to announce his presence and the goods of the day. "Bananas, bananas, how many, how many?! Oranges four cents, three for a dime. How many, how many?!"

Known throughout town as "How Many," Frank put himself into the majority society's daily lives, catering to the tastes and expectations of the office workers at the courthouse, cajoling, bantering with young and old, entertainingly delivering what folks would buy, nickels and dimes at a time. In time, he acquired properties, financed an extended stay in St. Louis in 1904 to visit the World Exposition, and was invited to sing on KFVS radio. Baptized at age 11 in the Mississippi River (a self-acclaimed "deep-water Baptist"), Frank was a long-serving deacon and choir leader at Second Missionary Baptist Church.

Memoir-writers William Kaempfer, city clerk, and businessman L. Lee Albert wrote about "How Many" in their remembrances of bygone days. Decades of newspapers are full of Frank's quotes, written in dialectic mimicry which jar today's sensibilities and remind us Frank chose a very public life in the Jim Crow era. Was Frank content to settle for a peddler's income? Did social structures of the community limit his capacity to earn dollars instead of dimes?

Frank spoke often of his love interests, but remained a bachelor. In his later years, he worked as a cook at St. Vincent Seminary. Without family or personal assets, Frank's last months were spent at the County Home, were he died in 1942 at the reported age of 76. Throughout public record, "How Many" was consistently praised for his "honest, temperate and self-supporting" life.

The 1912 City Directory lists Frank's residence at Fountain and Good Hope streets, a location shared by African-American entrepreneurs in eras to come: Peoples Cafe (1956), owned by J. T. and Lessie Nelson; and Tru-Que (2018), owned by Byron and Glynis Bonner.