Frances Sleep: Commissioner and President, 1965

 

Judge Sleep, second from the left, with state and federal advisors for the Bonner County Family Services Project. Project Supervisor Ferrell Brown is standing on the far right.
Sandpoint News-Bulletin, April 1, 1965

About Frances Sleep

Incorporator

In 1965, as winter turned to spring, Frances Sleep and four others incorporated a new organization under the name of the Community Organization for Progress. Sleep’s co-incorporators were Everett D. Hofmeister, Joe C. Swendig, Royce S. Fuhriman, and Donald W. Largent. According to an article in the March 20 edition of the Spokesman-Review, the purpose of the new corporation was “to promote projects under the federal economic opportunity act, the manpower development and training act and the area redevelopment act.” The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, the Manpower Development and Training Act of 1962, and the Area Redevelopment Act of 1961 were weapons in the War on Poverty that President Kennedy declared and President Johnson escalated. (Spokesman-Review, March 20, 1965, p. 2)

The Community Organization for Progress (COP), reports an article in the April 15 edition of the News-Bulletin, was a “non-profit, private corporation” formed to administer a grant to finance summer jobs for youth between the ages of 16 and 21. The Neighborhood Youth Corps, a new federal program created by the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, had awarded the grant. Its amount, $76,210, was impressive, but its delivery was not.  An article in the August 19 edition of the paper reports that program funds were received in mid-August, much too late to interest any "potential applicants.”  (Sandpoint News-Bulletin, April 15, 1965, p. 1; Sandpoint News-Bulletin, August 19, 1965, p. 1) 

Fortunately, implementation of the organization’s second grant went more smoothly. In late spring 1966, the Office of Economic Opportunity awarded COP a grant in the amount of $40,225 to fund a “head-start program for 117 pre-school children in Bonner County.” Within weeks of the award announcement, “Operation Head Start” was in operation. According to an article in the July 7, 1966, edition of the News-Bulletin, the school district provided the “teachers, facilities and other accommodations” for the program, while COP administered the grant. The article also explains that the purpose of program was to provide children “who might not have had an opportunity to attend private kindergarten” the experience of being in a classroom before they begin first grade. (Sandpoint News-Bulletin, July 7, 1966, p. 1)

Co-Chair

An article in the January 7 edition of the Sandpoint News-Bulletin updated its readers on the status of the Bonner County Family Services project, a new grant-funded community program that had been organized in 1964 through the efforts of Judge Sleep and others. According to the article, staffing for the program was nearly complete, and headquarters had been secured in a building on Third Avenue in Sandpoint. In addition to program director Ferrell Brown, the staff included receptionist Helen Brockway (who had clerked for Judge Sleep for several years), home economist Anita Townsend, public health nurse Lois Calkins, and social worker Ruth Brown. (Sandpoint News-Bulletin, May 28, 1964, p. 1) 

Brown, in a subsequent article in the January 28 edition of the News-Bulletin, explained that he and his staff would work with the schools, law enforcement and the courts, and public and private social agencies to help “problem individuals and families.” In fact, according to an Associated Press article about the project in the April 25 edition of the Spokesman-Review, it was specifically designed to address the needs of the families that “were responsible for 80 per cent of the county’s juvenile delinquency.” The service most needed by these families, Brown explained in the article, is “counseling on emotional problems," such as depression. Among the physical problems the program treated were hearing, vision, and speech defects, as well as malnutrition. (Sandpoint News-Bulletin, January 28, 1965, p. 13; Spokesman-Review, April 25, 1965, p. 3) 

Several months later, Brown and Judge Sleep, according to a notice in the December 23 edition of the News-Bulletin, attended a “conference concerning mental health” in Chicago. It is only speculation, but the conference may have been the one that the 1965 Council of State Governments and the National Institutes of Mental Health co-sponsored in December. Some “300 leaders in the field of mental illness,” reports the December 12 edition of the Kansas City Star, were expected to attend and participate in the Chicago meeting. (Kansas City Star, December 12, 1965, p. 15) 

The subject of the conference, the “move from the dreary and prison-like mental institution to the new and modern community mental health center,” would certainly have interested both Judge Sleep and Brown. It seems as sure that they would have known, too, that the federal government planned “to build about 500 community centers for the care and prevention of mental illness by 1970.” Perhaps, the two community advocates attended the conference to obtain information about how to convert Bonner County's Family Services program into a permanent center. (Kansas City Star, December 12, 1965, p. 15; Chicago Tribune, December 15, 1965, p. 62) 

If Sleep’s and Brown’s true motivations for attending the conference are unknown, it is known that the Family Services program was not renewed at the end of its three-year grant span. “With the conclusion of the Bonner County Family Services Project,” an article in the November 9, 1967, edition of the News-Bulletin begins, “Ferrell Brown, project director, announces a workshop” for the purpose of providing “additional training and resources for those who will have to do the counseling after the project is concluded—doctors, ministers, etc.” (Sandpoint News-Bulletin, November 9, 1967, p. 1) 

Judge Sleep, far right, introduces new youth counselor Kenneth Fallon
to county and civic leaders; seated left to right: Andrew Bews,
Emma Rathbun, Fallon, former youth counselor Bob Culbertson. 
Standing, V.A. Verhei, school board trustee.
Sandpoint News-Bulletin, May 27, 1965

Petitioner

In May, Judge Sleep hosted “an informal coffee hour” in her Chambers to introduce “a group of county civic leaders” to Kenneth Fallon, the new youth rehabilitation counselor for northern Idaho. Based on her longtime efforts to expand the state’s youth rehabilitation services in the northern part of the state, Judge Sleep undoubtedly would have been delighted to introduce Fallon as an addition to the staff, but he was a replacement, not an addition. Just as his predecessor Robert Culbertson had been responsible for serving each of Idaho’s 10 northern counties, so was he.

Judge Sleep is known to have petitioned the members of the State Board of Health to expand youth services at their meeting in Lewiston as early as 1963. At that time, she specifically requested that an additional counselor position be created to serve the five northernmost counties, Boundary, Bonner, Kootenai, Benewah, and Shoshone. Although the Board authorized the position, funding never materialized. Two years later, Judge Sleep appealed again for the position in a March 8 letter to Rodney A. Hansen, Chair of the Idaho Senate Finance Committee. “It is a fantastic expectation,” she writes, “and an unrealistic “economy” to require the Youth Rehabilitation Division to provide such law-designated services with so few and widely scattered a staff of counselors! Just to cover all 10 northern counties in this Panhandle consumes a wasteful number of hours in travel time.” (Harold Lough Papers, MG 46, University of Idaho Special Collections and Archives) 

It is difficult to know for certain, but Judge Sleep’s letter may have influenced the appropriations process of the 1965 Legislative Session and subsequent ones. In January 1966, a “juvenile probation office for Bonner and Boundary counties” was established in Sandpoint, according to an article in the April 13, 1967, edition of the Sandpoint News-Bulletin. The News-Bulletin also reveals that by January 1968 the “Probate Court of Bonner County” had its very own probation officer.” (Sandpoint News-Bulletin, April 13, 1967, p. 11; Sandpoint News-Bulletin, January 11, 1968, p. 10) 

Coeur d'Alene Press, July 24, 1965

Roundupper

During the summer of 1965, an international community of over 10,000 citizens sprang forth on the site of a former naval base on the shores of Lake Pend Oreille. From July 15 through July 28, “some 9,000 Girl Scouts and 2,000 staffers,” not to mention nearly 20,000 visitors, participated in the 1965 Senior Girl Scout Roundup at what is now Farragut State Park and former home of the Farragut Naval Training Station. (Coeur d’Alene Press, July 30, 1965, p. 2) 

The 1965 Girl Scout Roundup was a youth camp-out of epic proportions with nearly as many activities as there were campers. The location of the Roundup in scenic northern Idaho provided many opportunities for outdoor recreation. Scouts could follow dips in Lake Pend Oreille with hikes in a national forest. If entertainment was more to a Scout’s liking, she could see the best performers the Inland Northwest had to offer. Dancers, both Indigenous and Basque; lumberjacks; horsemen and horsewomen; falcon flyers; bagpipers; old-time fiddlers: all entertained Scouts and visitors alike, while celebrating the region’s distinctive arts and culture. 

There were also activities for serious-minded Scouts. A “prime feature” of the Roundup, according to an United Press International article published in the July 19 edition of the Coeur d’Alene Press, were “a series of large, free-wheeling forums.” The topics discussed in the forums, a Roundup official explained in the article, would “revolve around the girls’ interests” and could range from national and world events to interpersonal relationships to paranormal activity. An example of one of the topics discussed at the Roundup was the one in which Judge Sleep participated as a first-hand expert – the role of women in the legal profession. During the event, Sleep had dinner with a group of Louisiana Scouts and attended the “dedication ceremonies” that accompanied the opening of the Roundup’s post office. (Coeur d’Alene Press, July 19, 1965, p. 1) 

During most of the Roundup, Mother Nature smiled on the campers, but at its conclusion, she showed the other side of her character. According to a United Press International article in Nampa's Idaho Free Press, “a heavy rainstorm washed out one final ceremony and blacked out another.”  As the article explains, the “elaborate final lowering of the flags of the United States, the 50 states and 40 foreign nations was cancelled as lightning flashed and thunder roared the warning of the coming rainstorm. The flags were unceremoniously taken down just before the rain struck.” (Idaho Free Press, July 27, 1965, p. 4)

On July 29, as 9,000 Girl Scouts made their way back home via “bus, train, plane and private car,” Idaho Governor Robert E. Smylie announced that Farragut had been chosen as the site of the 1967 Boy Scouts Jamboree. According to an article in that day’s edition of the Spokane Chronicle, between 17,000 to 18,000 Boy Scouts were expected to attend the upcoming Jamboree, the “first ever held in the United States.” “The wonderful job the Girl Scouts did at their Roundup,” said Spokane mayor Lorin W. Markham, “unquestionably helped bring the Boy Scout event to Farragut.” (Idaho Free Press, July 27, 1965, p. 4; Spokane Chronicle, July 29, 1965, p. 1) 

Three inaugural members of the Idaho Commission on the
Status of Women. Left to right, State Treasurer Marjorie Moon,
Judge Sleep, State Representative Gladys Rae Swank
Sandpoint News-Bulletin, November 4, 1965

Commissioner

Three weeks after the Roundup had ended, Governor Smylie made another announcement. On August 20, the governor announced whom he had selected to serve on the newly-created Commission on the Status of Women. Judge Sleep was among those he selected. Other members of the commission from northern Idaho were Gladys Rae Swank, Lewiston; Rose Mayes, Coeur d’Alene; Marjorie Neely, University of Idaho Dean of Women, Moscow; Grace J. Wicks, Moscow; and Dr. Eva S. Ogg, North Idaho Junior College Dean of Women, Coeur d’Alene. Boise attorney and State Representative Edith Miller Klein was named chair. 

In late September, Judge Sleep participated in a “panel on community action opportunities” during the annual meeting of the Idaho Extension Homemakers’ Council in Twin Falls, and a month later, she returned to southern Idaho to attend the first meeting of the Women’s Commission in Boise. According to an article in the October 31 edition of the Idaho Statesman, the commissioners established several committees “to study the problems of women in economic, social, political and legal matters.” Judge Sleep, the article adds, was assigned to two committees. On one, she and the other members were responsible for studying “policies and practices with respect to education, counseling and training of women,” and the focus of the other was, “women as citizens and volunteer workers.” (Idaho Statesman, October 31, 1965, p. 10) 

President

Within days of meeting with the members of the Women’s Commission in Boise, Sleep returned to Twin Falls to preside at a discussion on adoption during the annual meeting of the Idaho Conference on Social Welfare. During the concluding session of the meeting, Judge Sleep was elected president of the Conference. According to an article in the November 7 edition of the Twin Falls newspaper Times-News, one of the “goals” of the Idaho Conference on Social Welfare was to promote “the closest possible cooperation between all individuals and agencies engaged in any form of social welfare to enlist public interest through making available pertinent facts relating to such programs.” Another goal of the Conference was to encourage “sound social planning by working toward the correlation and coordination of individual and organizational efforts.” (Times-News, November 7, 1965, p. 1)

Chair and Advisor, 1966 through 1968