Frances Sleep: President-Developer-Commissioner, 1961

Idaho Statesman, January 1961

About Frances Sleep

  
President, Idaho Press Women
According to an article in the Saturday, January 21, 1961, edition of the Idaho Statesman, Judge Sleep had recently arrived in Boise to preside as president at the annual meeting and luncheon of the Idaho Press Women. Before the women got down to business, however, they enjoyed a luncheon at which Betty Penson, the “Statesman’s woman’s editor,” and former Idaho governor C.A. Bottolfsen, spoke. Penson discussed her experiences on a recent trip to Africa, and Bottolfsen – with Idaho’s territorial centennial only two years away – challenged those present to do more to publicize Idaho’s “rich treasury of history.”” (Idaho Statesman, January 23, 1961, p. 9)

Flag-raising ceremony, Camp Pioneer,
Priest Lake, July 1961

Idaho Youth Conservation Corps “Developer”
In mid-February, an article in the February 12 edition of the Idaho Statesman reports that, a bill "setting up a pilot project for a summer youth conservation camp" had been introduced" in the state senate. "The measure," the article explains, "would implement a suggestion by Probate Judge Frances Sleep," and if passed, would appropriate $61,000 in the 1961-63 biennium. The article did not specify to whom Sleep had made the suggestion, but it did mention that she had "spent more than a week in Boise recently contacting legislators." (Idaho Statesman, February 12, 1961, p. 6)

Three days later, in its February 15 edition, the Statesman published an editorial in support of the legislation. After noting that the proposed program had already undergone a “trial run the past three summers in Bonner county,” the editors deemed it “one that’s eminently deserving of favorable attention and approval by the Legislature.” Idaho’s legislators not only agreed but also appropriated the pilot program for the full amount suggested. (Idaho Statesman, February 15, 1961, p. 4)

Camp Pioneer No. 1 trophy winners, left to right:
 Lon Price, Mountain Home, sawing; Ken Koskella, Challis, chopping;
State Forester Roger Guernsey; Camp director Ken Bushey;
Lyn Marsh, Grangeville, chopping; Jack Quinn, Priest River, chopping

Four months later, on July 10, the pilot program took flight when “Camp Pioneer" opened on the northeast shores of Bonner County’s Priest Lake. A total of 45 boys participated, and according to State Forester Roger L. Guernsey, these "young woodsmen did much to improve the Priest Lake State Forest." Among many accomplishments, the boys cleared 11 miles of trails; reseeded an 11-acre burn site with "cedar, spruce, and Douglas-fir;" thinned 15 acres of trees; cleared a stream channel "to permit passage of spawning cutthroat trout;" and removed "tons of debris from the beach and base camp.” On the day the camp ended, a "special fire crew" of 20 boys so thoroughly controlled a small forest fire that "not a wisp of smoke" was left showing, and they did that before breakfast! (Coeur d’Alene Press, August 24, 1961, p. 3)

The success of the camp caught the attention of the Idaho Statesman, and in early September, the paper published a second editorial in support of the pilot program. “One swallow doesn’t make a summer,” the editorial begins, “but the testimony of one of the 50 [sic] Idaho lads who spent the summer at the first state-sponsored pilot Youth Camp on the shore of North Idaho’s Priest Lake provides some pretty significant evidence of foresight and good judgment on the part of the backers of this undertaking.” (Idaho Statesman, September 6, 1961, p. 4)

Mike Echols of Boise was the Idaho lad who provided the testimony. "The work we were given was tough," he is quoted as saying, "but it was what we teenagers want...This summer was a great experience for me and I know that the others feel the same way." “If this lad’s reaction is typical,” the editorial concludes, “it may very well serve as a most important basis for judgment that Bonner County’s Probate Judge Frances Sleep who started it, had the right idea.” (Idaho Statesman, September 6, 1961, p. 4)

Pioneer Camp No. 2, 1962, left to right:
Larry Jones, Bingham County;
Stuart Merrill, Franklin County;
Dan Baugh, Bonner County

Bolstered by the success of the first youth conservation camp, organizers of Pioneer Camp No. 2 expanded the program in several ways. The number of participant slots was increased to 60, the duration of the camp was extended from six to nine weeks, and the "pay was set at $30 per month with the state furnishing transportation, lodging, board, medical care, boots and socks and work tools." Like the first, the second camp was located on Priest Lake, and according to an article in the August 18, 1962, edition of the Coeur d'Alene Press, its entrance honored "the name of Probate Judge Frances Sleep." The project received national attention in December when American Forests magazine published State Forester Roger L. Guernsey's article about "Idaho's two-year experiment in a forest camp for boys." (Sandpoint News-Bulletin, January 3, 1963, p. 3; Coeur d'Alene Press, August 18, 1962, p. 1) 

Undoubtedly influenced by the success of Pioneer camps No. 1 and No. 2, the members of the 1963 Legislature passed legislation that made the Idaho Youth Conservation Corps pilot program permanent. Governor Smylie, who had supported the program from the beginning, made it official when he signed the legislation into law in mid-March. Funding for the program was sustained for the next four years, but in 1967, the Senate decided to withhold funding. Proving that representative government is ever subject to “checks and balances,” the members of the joint finance committee weighed in on the issue, and in due time, decided to amend the state budget “to include an appropriation for the Idaho Youth Conservation Camp.” According to an article in the March 23, 1967, edition of the Sandpoint News-Bulletin, the appropriation was made possible through a motion that transferred funding for the program from the forestry department to the state parks department. (Sandpoint News-Bulletin, March 23, 1967, p. 1)

Judge Sleep responded to the reinstatement by sending thank-you letters to the members of the joint finance committee, including Senator Harold Lough of Latah County. “The wire service,” her letter to the committee members begins, “brings word that the appropriation has been reinstated for the 1967-68 Youth Conservation Forestry Camp…This is heartening news, indeed!!” On Senator Lough’s letter, Judge Sleep also wrote a personal note that reads, “What a skirmish that must have been in joint committee this a.m. Just want you to know how much I appreciate your help.” (Harold Lough Papers, 1957-1968, Manuscript Group 46, University of Idaho Special Collections and Archives, Moscow, Idaho)

Commissioner, Children’s Code Commission
In April, Governor Smylie recognized Judge Sleep as one of Idaho’s authorities on the welfare of children and youth when he named her to the newly-legislated Children’s Code Commission. The purpose of the commission, according to an article in the May 30, 1961, edition of the Idaho Statesman, was “to study all laws of the state relating to juvenile delinquency, adoption, youth rehabilitation and dependent, abused, and neglected children.” The idea of the commission seems to have originated in 1960 when the Idaho Conference on Social Welfare adopted a resolution recommending that a “Children’s Code Commission” be established “to completely review all present legislation pertaining to children in Idaho, and draft a modern Children’s Code.” Among the members of the Idaho Conference on Social Welfare, an association of professional social workers and other individuals involved with the care of children and youth, was Frances Sleep. (Idaho Statesman, May 30, 1961, p. 13; Idaho Statesman, October 6, 1960, p. 13)

At a meeting in Boise in September, the members of the Children's Code Commission prioritized their work to focus on three service areas: special education, corrections, and protection. Because the Commission also identified a need to “gather and correlate” information “relating to the existing services provided by the various public and private agencies operating in Idaho, plans were made to hold public hearings throughout the state. As Judge Sleep emphasized in an article in the September 8 edition of the Statesman, the purpose of the public hearings was “to gather information and not dispense it.” The article also reports that the Commission had determined that the “welfare of Indian children and children of migrant laborers” was to be included in the study. (Idaho Statesman, September 8, 1961, p. 21)


Left to right, retired Judge Walter Scott Criswell, Judge Sleep,
Idaho probate judges W.H. Jensen, J. Lessil Sharp, Elmer Roise, 
Spokane Chronicle, June 23, 1961

Probate Judge and Hostess
In June, Idaho’s probate judges met in Sandpoint for their 21st annual convention. During the three-day event, the judges heard speeches from experts in a variety of fields, including law, education, juvenile justice, and psychiatry. One of the speakers was Charles Stidwell, principal of Sandpoint Junior High School, and like Sleep, an authority on child and adolescent behavior. Another speaker was retired juvenile court judge Walter Scott Criswell of Duval County, Florida. Judge Criswell, according to an article in the June 20 edition of the Spokane Chronicle, provided a history of the juvenile justice system in the United States, from its origin in 1899 when Illinois established the nation’s first juvenile court, to the present. (Spokane Chronicle, June 20, 1961, p. 11)
 
After the convention, according to an article in the July 6 edition of the News-Bulletin, Judge Criswell visited with Judge Sleep for several days and accepted her invitation to sit in on “two or three juvenile matters.” “It was most interesting and helpful to watch him work,” she is quoted as saying in the article. Criswell, the article adds, was “tremendously impressed with Sandpoint and with Idaho’s probate judges,” whom he called a “fine, sincere group of people.” (Sandpoint News-Bulletin, July 6, 1961, p. 3)
 
Speaker
Later that summer, Judge Sleep also appeared on the speakers’ platform. Tracing Judge Criswell’s transnational journey, only in reverse, Sleep spoke at a session of the Blue Ridge Training Institute for Southern Juvenile Court Judges in North Carolina. The topic of her speech was Idaho’s youth camp-out program. Back home in Sandpoint, Sleep spoke to a group of Bonner County teachers in early September to dispel misconceptions about juvenile courts. “One large group of people,” she is quoted as saying in an article in the September 7 edition of the News-Bulletin, “think of juvenile courts in terms of punishment, seeing the court as an instrument for inflicting [the] vengeance of society upon young wrong-doers.” Another group,” she added, “seems to feel that the juvenile court is a wishy-washy device for pampering delinquent kids. Neither of these concepts fits the modern juvenile court.” The purpose of her court, Sleep explained, was “to assist in finding the basic reason for an individual’s misbehavior or lack of adjustment and to set up a program” that will make help him or her become “a well-integrated, useful member of society.” (Sandpoint News-Bulletin, September 7, 1961, p. 1)


 

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