The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc.,
Chicago and New York, Volume III,
pg. 401

FRANK C. BURDETTE. The public profession of the law
has been a matter of practice as well as a theoretical
ideal with Frank C. Burdette. He has been a member of
the Charleston bar nearly thirty years, and whether in
office or in private practice he has seriously conformed
his efforts and influence in line with the principle that
he was the servant of a great and noble profession, and not
merely engaged in a vocation to earn a livelihood.

Mr. Burdette, who is the present prosecuting attorney of
Kanawha County, was born on a farm in Lawrence County,
Ohio, October 19, 1870. Shortly after his birth his parents,
S. C. and Mollie (Taylor) Burdette, moved to Charleston,
West Virginia. His mother was a native of Louisiana.
S. C. Burdette was a first cousin of the famous humorist, the
late Bob Burdette. S. C. Burdette was a sign painter by
trade, but after removing to Charleston, read law, was
admitted to the bar, and gained a high place in the profes-
sion. He served as prosecuting attorney, and for eight
years was judge of the Circuit Court, retiring from the
bench in 1914. He is now about seventy-six years of age,
and in the past has been an active campaigner for the
republican party.

Frank C. Burdette attended high school at Charleston,
did some post-graduate work, and studied law in the office of
his father and also in the office of George C. Sturgis, then
United States district attorney. S. C. Burdette was assist-
ant to Mr. Sturgis at the same time. Admitted to the bar
in 1893, Frank C. Burdette entered at once into the work
of his profession and also into republican politics.  In
1894 he organized a republican club, with a membership of
over 1,000. He was first elected to the office of prosecuting
attorney in 1896, and served four years, after which he
resumed private practice. Later he was called as assistant
prosecutor to S. B. Avis and his successor, T. C. Townsend,
for four years, and continued as assistant prosecuting attor-
ney under B. Kemp Littlepage for four years. Mr. Little-
page was a democrat, while Mr. Burdette is a republican.
In 1920 he was accorded the republican nomination for
prosecuting attorney, and he carried the county by 6,200
majority, running 2,000 votes ahead of his ticket.  He
entered upon the office January 1, 1921. Mr. Burdette
organized and is president of the Prosecuting Attorneys
Association of the State.

His hobby is flowers, and he is a lover of nature in
all her phases. For a number of years he has been a student
of botany, and has gone into the more obscure relations be-
tween beauty as manifested in flowers and other environment
and human behavior, particularly as human behavior is
perverted into criminal acts under the influence of ugly
environment. He has studied all the works of prominent
psychologists who have covered this ground, and has had
in his own experience as an attorney and public official the
opportunity to study at first hand the reactions of abnormal
individuals to the influences of color, forms and tone. At
his country home at Edgewood, Mr. Burdette finds his
recreation and practices his amateur art as a landscape
gardener and grower of old fashioned flowers.  He is
affiliated with the Knights of Pythias.

Mr. Burdette married Nellie Ault.  Her grandfather,
Major Ault, was a pioneer of the Cabin Creek District of the
Kanawha Valley. Mrs. Burdette was born at Eastbank,
West Virginia. They have two children, Mary Frances and
Dorothy Perkins.


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