Frances Sleep: Director and Planner, 1962 through 1964
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| Frances Sleep, seated on far right, and other members of Idaho's Manpower Advisory Committee, Boise, Idaho Statesman, December 19, 1963 |
Award Winner
In January 1962, as she had the year before, Judge Sleep
presided at the annual meeting and luncheon of the Idaho Press Women in
Boise. Although she was not re-elected president, she did receive several
awards for her writing and photography, including first place for a news story
published in a magazine and second place for a feature story published in a
daily newspaper. In the category of “feature picture in a magazine,” Judge
Sleep took the top prize. Unfortunately, the publications in which her award-winning stories and photos were published are not known. (Sandpoint News-Bulletin, March 8, 1962, p.
13)
Community Development Supporter
In April, Judge Sleep endorsed a proposal to build a ski
resort in Bonner County. “I, for one,” she wrote in a statement published in
the April 5 edition of the Sandpoint News-Bulletin, “see the Schweitzer Basin ski
project as a distinct advantage for our young people here in Bonner county. To
make this desirable project a reality is a challenge in community cooperation.”
Through the efforts of Judge Sleep and many other “public spirited folk,” the
ski resort, now known as Schweitzer,
was built and over the past five decades has become one of the nation’s most
desirable year-round recreational destinations.
Hostess
Judge Sleep hosted Ray W. Wootton, head of Idaho’s Youth
Rehabilitation Program, in early May. When the legislature passed the Youth
Rehabilitation Act in 1955, it “formulated the framework for a program to
develop services for youth,” according to an article in the March 7, 1957,
edition of the Burley Herald. Among the services envisioned was a
statewide professional staff to provide “investigative, counseling, detention
and supervisory services for juvenile courts. The new program was assigned to
the Mental Health Division of Idaho’s Board of Health in recognition of the
“fact that juvenile delinquency” was a “mental health problem.” (Burley
Herald, March 7, 1957, p. 16)
Wootton, according to an article in the May 3 edition of
the News-Bulletin, reported on the activities of the Youth
Rehabilitation Program at a conference held in Judge Sleep’s office. Other
officials who participated in the meeting were Sheriff Robert Butigan,
Sandpoint Chief of Police George Elliot, Priest River Chief of Police Don
Fiedler, County Extension Agent Iva Burnstad, County Welfare Director Louise
Fortune, nurses Alma McKenney and Edith Riddle, and Dr. Mary Pepper. (Sandpoint
News-Bulletin, May 3, 1962, p. 9)
Candidate
Judge Sleep enlivened the News-Bulletin’s want-ads
section in advance of the June 5 primary. In the paper’s May 10 edition, she
ran an ad requesting that 3000 voters place an “X” after her name on the
Democratic ballot in the primary election. In return, she offered “continued
dedicated service plus mature experience on behalf of you and your children.”
After the primary, which Judge Sleep won, she ran another ad, which was published
in the paper’s Personal ads section; it reads:
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: To all who
so generously shared their X’s with me on the Democratic ballot in Tuesday’s
primary election, I wish to extend my sincere and deep appreciation for your
generosity and pledge that the probate court will strive to continue to merit
your confidence. Frances Sleep, Probate Judge
(Sandpoint News-Bulletin, Mary 10, 1962, p. 4; Sandpoint News-Bulletin, June 7, 1962, p. 11)
Visit Coordinator
Following her victory in the primary election (which
foreshadowed her win in the November general election) Judge Sleep coordinated
the visit of two employees of the National Institute of Mental Health to Bonner
County. According to an article in the June 21 edition of the News-Bulletin,
Sleep met with psychiatric social worker Irene Kohl of Denver and
communications officer Harold P. Halpert of Washington D.C. to give them “a
first hand look at work being done in Bonner county” on behalf of the mentally
ill. After taking the visitors to Camp Pioneer on Priest Lake, the article
adds, Judge Sleep hosted a conference in her chambers “with a number of
interested persons.” The “problems of the aging, of youngsters who drop out of
school and of badly adjusted families” were discussed at the meeting. Three
months later, Kohl returned to Bonner County to participate in another
discussion that Judge Sleep arranged. The focus of this conference was “health,
youth and welfare problems,” according to an article in the September 27
edition of the News-Bulletin. (Sandpoint News-Bulletin, June 21,
1962, p. 6; Sandpoint News-Bulletin, September 27, 1962, p. 12)
Commissioner
In October, the Children’s Code Commission, on which Judge Sleep
served, released a special report following “an exhaustive 15-month study” of
Idaho’s juvenile programs. The report revealed that the state was
failing its youth. According to an Associated Press article in the October 4
edition of the Spokane Chronicle, the “chief reasons for the failure of
Gem State juvenile programs” were “conflicting laws, a “gross inadequacy” of
special services and unassigned responsibility for child welfare.” (Spokane
Chronicle, October 4, 1962, p. 11)
The article adds that the Commissioners made several
recommendations to address the deficiencies, and early in 1963, the
Idaho Legislature adopted two of them. After much debate, legislators passed
the Child Protective Act of 1963, which defined, for the first time in Idaho, what constituted child abuse,
neglect, exploitation, and abandonment. The act also granted authority to the
Department of Public Assistance “to take action in cases of apparent” child
mistreatment. The second piece of legislation, which Idaho Statesman
reporter, John Corlett, described as “technical” in an article in his paper's March 6
edition, established a “method for terminating a child’s legal connection with
his parents by court action.” (Idaho Statesman, March 6, 1963, p. 6)
Historian
During 1963, Idahoans celebrated the centennial of the creation
of the Idaho Territory. Judge Sleep acknowledged the anniversary by contributing to a series titled “Paragraphs of
Idaho History” that was published in community newspapers throughout Idaho, from the Sandpoint News-Bulletin in the north to the Caribou County
Sun in the south. Among her contributions were descriptions of how Bonner
and Kootenai counties were formed.
Committee Member
For Judge Sleep, December was a beginning, not an end.
Early in the month, she agreed to serve on a planning committee of Region 1 of
the Idaho State Mental Health Authority. Region 1, which had been recently
formed, encompassed the five northern counties of Boundary, Bonner, Kootenai,
Benewah, and Shoshone. As a consequence of its organization, the Idaho State
Mental Health Authority allotted funds to the region’s five
counties “to support planning” for the expansion of “facilities for the diagnosis
and prevention of mental illness and maintenance of mental health,” according
to an article in the December 9 edition of the Spokane Chronicle. (Spokane
Chronicle, December 9, 1963, p. 5)
Vice Chairman
Toward the end of December, Judge Sleep traveled to Boise
to attend the first meeting of the State Manpower Advisory Committee to which
Governor Smylie had appointed her in September. She was the only woman on the committee, and, incidentally, only the second northern Idahoan. “The committee,” Governor Smylie was quoted as saying in an
article in the September 18 edition of the Spokane Chronicle, “will play
a vital role in the success” of the implementation in Idaho of federal programs
created under the Manpower
Development and Training Act of 1962, as well as those of the Area and
Redevelopment Administration. The purpose of the Manpower Development and
Training,” according to an article
on the U.S. Department of Labor website, was
“to train and retrain thousands of workers unemployed because of automation and
technological change. The Area
and Redevelopment Administration, established in 1961, sought to alleviate
rural poverty. At the Boise meeting, Idaho Falls attorney Orval Hansen was chosen
chairman, and Judge Sleep, vice chair. (Spokane Chronicle, September
18, 1963, p. 18; Wikipedia, “Area and Redevelopment Administration”)
Planner
At the beginning 1964, Judge Sleep and the other
members of the Bonner County steering committee of the Idaho State Mental
Health Authority did not let winter weather deter them from getting together to
identify ways of establishing a “community mental health center” for the five
northern counties of Region 1. After meeting in Sandpoint in the early part of the January, the
committee members traveled to Coeur d’Alene to attend a meeting of
representatives from throughout the five-county region. According to an article
in the January 16 edition of the News-Bulletin, it was announced at the
meeting that the federal government had “allotted to Idaho a grant of $100,000
to participate in a three year program of research and planning for the
development of a comprehensive setup of mental health services.” (Sandpoint
News-Bulletin, January 16, 1964, p. 1)
Co-Director
At the end of May, the Sandpoint News-Bulletin
reported that “a multi-pronged attack on the problems of juvenile delinquency,
school dropouts and other related social difficulties” would be “launched” in
Bonner County as a pilot project. The program, according to the article
published in the May 28 edition of the paper, was the work of “a group of
county people under the direction of Probate Judge Frances Sleep.” According to
a related article in the August 6 edition of the News-Bulletin, the National Institute of Mental Health had
agreed to support the project with a grant “to average $75,000 a year for a
three-year period.” Judge Sleep and Ray W. Wooton, director of the Youth Rehabilitation Division of Idaho’s Department of Health, were named project
co-directors. The aim of the project, as the article explains, was “to work
with the total environment” of a child’s life by coordinating a variety of
preventive and corrective services, “such as case work, public health nursing,
homemaking, and personal improvements to aid the family members in becoming
more capable of coping with their environment.” (Sandpoint News-Bulletin,
May 28, 1964, p. 1; Sandpoint News-Bulletin, August 6, 1964, p. 1)
Pend d’Oreille Player
In early September, the auditorium of Sandpoint’s junior
high was “jammed to capacity” for two performances of “Comin’ Round the
Mountain,” the initial production of a new Bonner County theatre troupe, the
Pend d’Oreille Players. As a member of the company’s crew, Judge Sleep helped
provide properties for the production, which “veteran actor and director” Hal
Bockoven oversaw. Based on an article in the September 3 edition of the News-Bulletin,
the production seems to have been a musical and comedy revue in which "more
than 50 Bonner county people" performed. (Sandpoint News-Bulletin,
September 3, 1964, p. 1)
Incumbent
Judge Sleep took the political stage in October when she
campaigned to be re-elected Bonner County Probate Judge. The campaign included a series of advertisements in the Sandpoint News-Bulletin
titled “Old Familiar Sayings.” In one ad, for example, Sleep listed the “fruits” of her labor as Probate Judge
since 1957, her first year in office. They included probating over 800 estates,
hearing 75 mental health hearings and 304 juvenile hearings, and marrying more
than 100 couples. In a subsequent advertisement, she argued that “experience is
the best teacher” and went on to list the “training courses and learning
experiences” in which she had participated. In a lengthy advertisement in the October 29
edition, Sleep combined the fruits of her labor and experience with her
success in having “instituted” or “encouraged” the Bonner County youth camp-out
program and Idaho’s Youth Forestry Camp program. (Sandpoint News-Bulletin,
October 1, 1964, p. 15; Sandpoint News-Bulletin, October 15, 1964, p. 7;
Sandpoint News-Bulletin, October 29, 1964, p. 10)
Judge Sleep’s Republican opponent, Bernice Lewis, also
advertised in the News-Bulletin. In the October 15 edition, for example,
Lewis ran an ad that offered her perspective on juvenile justice and suggested
that her opponent was soft on crime. “For the good of himself and the community
in which he lives,” she wrote, “the habitual juvenile offender should not be
let off with reprimands but must be made to suffer the consequences of his
acts.” Lewis, however, failed to sway the voters, and Sleep was
returned to office, having received nearly twice as many votes as her opponent.
(Sandpoint News-Bulletin, October 15, 1964, p. 5)
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| Judge Sleep testifying at a U.S. Senate subcommittee hearing regarding Idaho's Priest Lake, Sandpoint News-Bulletin, October 15, 1964 |
Backer
During October, as she campaigned for re-election, Judge
Sleep also testified before a subcommittee of the U.S. Senate to express her
support of a “proposal to acquire private lands adjacent to Upper Priest lake
to retain the primitive aspects of the area.” According to an article in the
October 15 edition of the News-Bulletin, Senator Alan Bible, D-Nev.,
chaired the hearing, which was held in the “large dining room of Hill’s Resort at Luby Bay.”
Joining Sen. Bible were Idaho’s Congressional team, senators Frank Church and Len Jordan and
Representative Compton
I. White, Jr. Support for preserving the pristine nature of Upper
Priest Lake was “unanimous,” the article adds, and in 1967, the U.S. Forest
Service and the Nature Conservancy purchased “five small parcels of private
land totaling about 420 acres on Upper Priest Lake,” according to a Forest
Service website. As a result, the “entire shoreline of Upper Priest Lake is
now in either the State of Idaho or Federal ownership, and is administered as a
scenic area.” (Sandpoint News-Bulletin, October 15, 1964, p. 5)
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| Judge Sleep and Clerk Helen Brockway extend their Yuletide greetings to the citizens of Bonner County, Sandpoint News-Bulletin, December 20, 1962 |
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