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| THE B. F. GROUP STANDING—DELOS HAYNES SEATED—FRED ALLEN, WILL HUDSON, CHARLEY FAIRCHILD, LUMAN TENNEY |
The following extract from a letter written by Charles G.
Fairchild explains the meaning of the term B. F.
“When we were boys of 13 or 14 we had a literary society. As
my brother Henry and I came home one night he complained to my father that a few
of the older boys—“big fry” he called them—got all the offices, though the small
ones outnumbered them. From this date the terms “Big Fry” and “Little Fry”
became catchwords and were bandied back and forth until finally the “Big Fry”
were rounded up into an exclusive inner set of five members. Nothing was made of
this in the literary society. But in the long summer afternoons we “B. F.’s”
used to gather somewhere, get some lemons and sugar if they were in any way
obtainable, take a long time in drinking a little lemonade, and listening
perhaps to an improvised story or two from one of our members who was
especially gifted in this line. At one time an illustrated paper in the interest
of the “B. F.” appeared. It was entitled “The Thunderbolt,” laboriously written
by hand and passed from member to member for perusal.
Not a boy of us realized that our club meant anything, but
when marriage came and there followed a Bertha Frances, a Bernard Frederick and
a Barbara Frances, all first born babies bearing the initials “B. F.”, we first
began to realize that “B. F.” had struck tap roots deep in our hearts. From an
unplanned beginning with no organization, nothing sober or specially rational,
with no thought of the future, we had come, under cover of old jokes and an
accidental name, to prefer each other, to like each other, to love each other.
What does “B. F.” stand for? Perhaps for the greatest thing
in the world. If we could only all love each other in a senseless, foolish
way—simply love each other, with no questions asked and no special thought—what
a changed world this would be.”
This seal was adopted by the B. F.'s as their “coat of arms.”
The motto “Unus amore” was unearthed from the classics by one of the members; the
introduction of periods between the first three letters opening the way for
this unique translation:
“Unus amore,” one in love; “more,” in custom; “ore,” in
face; “re,” in fact. The “unus” being read into each sentence amplifies the original
motto as follows: “One in love, one in custom, one in face, one in fact.”
It was at the last reunion of the B. F. boys held in March,
1877, at the home of Delos R. Haynes in St. Louis, Mo., that the idea was conceived
of each one writing a brief account of his life since the year 1860. This meant
recalling the history of eighteen years, but each “B. F.” did this, and the five
accounts were carefully put together in good form for preserving. F. D. T
SOURCE: Frances Andrews Tenney, War Diary Of Luman
Harris Tenney, p. 172-3
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