Frances B. (Grinnell) Kirschner's explanation of her middle initial:

September 24, 1936….A few have questioned me lately in regard to my first initial. There has not, you understand, been any great rush for information on this subject, but just a little surprise, idly expressed, by some long-time acquaintances who had no idea that I owned an "F" of my own. So this is how it happened. My mother, as a very young girl, once read a paper-backed novel entitled An Old Man’s Darling or A Young Man’s Bride. Never having read this book, I do not know whether its title is an interrogation or a statement. I cannot imagine how mother was ever allowed to read such a book, as grandmother exercised very strict jurisdiction over my reading, and although I searched secretly and diligently for the aforesaid book I never laid eyes upon it. However, it had for its heroine the beauteous Bonniebell De Vere, and this accounts for my middle initial. My father, in whose family "Frances" was an old and oft-repeated name, insisted that it be my first name. He must have been surprised when this was sweetly consented to by my mother; but she won her point after all by using only the first half of the middle name. All this while I was helpless to protect my own interests.

by Frances B. Kirschner, published in the Spring Valley, Wisconsin Sun