Frances Sleep

Center: Frances Sleep, Bonner County;
left: Ruth B. Schnurle, Fremont County;
right: Maxine Whitney, Kootenai County, 
Idaho Statesman, June 27, 1957

Frances Sleep was a 20th century Idaho public servant, community organizer, journalist, and homemaker who responded to the social problems of her community with compassion and ingenuity. She served as Bonner County Probate and Juvenile Judge from 1957 to 1970, was an inaugural member of the Idaho Commission on the Status of Women, and helped re-write Idaho statute relating to children and youth as a member of the Children’s Code Commission of 1960. Active in public service from the late 1950s through the 1960s, Judge Sleep participated in the formation of public policy when opportunities to do so were rare for women.

In addition to serving as a member on numerous local, state, and national commissions and committees, Judge Sleep frequently assumed leadership positions on them. In 1959, Idaho's probate judges selected her their association's secretary-treasurer. In 1960, the journalists of Idaho Press Women, the state's chapter of the National Federation of Press Women, elected her president, as did the members of the Idaho Conference on Social Welfare in 1965. In 1971, she served as vice-chair of the Idaho Commission on Women's Programs and chaired its task force on jail conditions in Idaho. 

During the period in which she served as Bonner County Probate Judge, Sleep, like all probate judges in Idaho, handled both probate matters and heard juvenile cases. Sleep clearly defined herself as a juvenile judge, so much so that by the end of the 1950s, she was recognized as an authority on the administration of juvenile justice in Idaho. In this role, Judge Sleep shared the speakers' table with law enforcement officers and state officials at numerous community forums where juvenile delinquency, an issue that concerned many Americans at the time, was the topic of discussion.   

Judge Sleep did more than talk about juvenile delinquency; she also developed and promoted public programs and services meant to deter it. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, she successfully campaigned for the establishment of summer youth forestry camps where teenage boys were given the opportunity to earn money while improving public outdoor recreational sites. Another solution Judge Sleep pursued with equal success was the expansion of social services to troubled Bonner County youth and their families. In 1964, she served as co-director of Bonner County Family Alliance, a grant-funded program directed at breaking the cycle of recidivism among juvenile offenders. Among the services available were mental health counseling, medical and dental care, and training in home management and personal development.  

Following her retirement from Bonner County government in 1970, Sleep continued to influence the administration of criminal justice in Idaho. During 1971 and 1972, she chaired an Idaho Commission on Women's Programs task force that investigated conditions in the state's county jails. In addition, Sleep partnered in 1972 with other Idahoans concerned about the state of Idaho's penal system to form the Idaho Committee on Crime and Delinquency; she also served as the group's secretary that year. 

Sleep did not limit herself to issues of state and national significance; she also helped shape the culture of Bonner County through her work as a journalist and by contributing to the programs and services of a wide variety of community organizations. For nearly five decades, the byline of "Frances Sleep" appeared in newspapers and magazines published throughout Idaho and the Inland Northwest. Her name, too, was found on the memberships lists of countless civic groups, ranging from the Bonner County Recreational Council in the 1930s to the Democratic Party in the 1950s to the Sandpoint Civic Club and the Bonner County Humane Society, which she organized, in 1975. 

Olga Frances Hamilton Sleep died in Sandpoint on February 25, 1994, at the age of 91. Her son Richard and his family, as well as numerous grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren, survived her, husband William and son Robert having preceded her in death. Sleep is interred in Pinecrest Memorial Park. 

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The following posts provide more detail about Sleep's career; I will publish them, one-by-one, in the upcoming weeks: 



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