Frank David Mohan, recipient of the Humming Bird Medal of Merit (Gold), was born at Siparia Road on July 1, 1919, and baptized in the Morning Star Presbyterian Church, Fyzabad.
The third son of head teacher Gilbert Mohan and his wife Daisy, he won a Bursary to Naparima College in 1932, gaining third place and becoming a Dormitory boy.
After completing the Cambridge School Certificate in 1936, he joined the teaching profession and later entered Naparima Training College in 1940, where he received the proficiency prize upon graduating.
Since his love was law, he enrolled with Grays Inn and was called to the Bar in the Trinity term of 1951. On his return, he was appointed Prosecutor of the then Black Market Board and in 1958, became a Magistrate. He later became Senior Crown Counsel, gained great success and was commended on many occasions by the Appeal Court and Magistrates.
He was appointed Chairman of Agricultural Tribunal North and subsequently chairman of National Insurance Appeals Tribunal. Mohan retired from the Public Service in 1975 and entered private practice as an Attorney-at-Law.
He was founder/member of Young Men's Movement in TT and of YMCA Port of Spain, Second President of Federal Council of YMCA of the Caribbean during Federation period and served in several lodges.
Mohan was Chairman of nearly every Standing Committee of the Presbyterian Church, served as Clerk of Synod, Elder and Sunday School Superintendent Leader. He was an outstanding volley ball player in the 1940's and was second to Lionel Seukeran in Island Wide debating contest.
Almost every man who towers among his fellows, like Saul among his brethren, who is distinguished for service to his church and country, owes the inspiration that shaped his life to the prayerful solicitude and tender love of a devoted wife. This was the role of Mohan's first wife Ahilya.
His present loving and faithful wife Shameza and daughter Mary stood by him at all times - in joy and sorrow, health and sickness - calm, patient, trustful, ministering to his needs with a dedication unsurpassed in our time.
Mohan's charity and hospitality knew no bounds. He was untiring in all good works and ever ready to sacrifice private inclinations to the discharge of public duties.
His solicitude for the welfare of the Church and State and his encouragement of every work for social amelioration was a shining example of his Xtian stewardship.
His kindness and delicacy of speech about those who agreed or disagreed or misunderstood him was marvelous. He seemed, like Moses, to have the majesty of meekness that belongs to one who dares to talk face to face with God.
To understand the meaning of Mohan's death, we must understand the meaning of his life. Looking at life all things change, nothing perishes. Soul has a substance of its own no less permanent for being immaterial, no less real for being invisible. We cannot measure it with calipers or weigh it in a balance. We cannot feel it with our fingers or see it with our eyes. But, it is there, substantial, real. It changes but it will not perish.
Therefore, our memory, our remembrance of the qualities of Mohan, of his soul will not perish.
It is also necessary that publicly we should pay tributes to the life we consider well lived so that it will be a guide and reminder to us when we are tempted to let life slip away.
Mohan, now resting from his labours bequeaths his memory to the generations whom his works have blessed and sleeps under the humble but inglorious epitaph, commemorating one in whom mankind lost a friend.
May God grant him peace and his dearly loved ones the comfort that he is with his maker. For he seldom dies who can bequeath some influence to the land he knows. Yes, his life was gentle and the elements so mixed in him that nature might stand up and say to all the world, "this was a man."
Now let us believe that beyond our day and night, our ebb and flow, our year and nay, our good and evil, the eternal is eternally the same.
From the zenith of attainment and the top of action, Mohan passes to render his account to the Master whom he served.
The tailor is appointed to the rest that remaineth to the people of God. And, now, when all is over we hear a great voice falling from the skies above his record as husband, father, brother, friend and the voice says: "Servant of God well done."