Briggsdale School - 1911-12 & 1916 - Charlotte Kennedy & Dr. Fee
Quoted from my grandmother Charlotte Pearl Kennedy Johnson Botkin's (1894-1990) memoirs:
Dr. Fee was a darling white-haired man who came to Briggsdale (Colorado) to start a drug store the year I taught there in 1911 and 1912.Our school was to be discontinued. (In August 1916; in 1915 she taught at Rock Ridge High School, 7 miles from "home" which was Briggsdale.)He (Dr. Fee) was now on the school board of the town district, and the few children attending my school were to be sent to Briggsdale the next year.One of the board members who was at the summer meeting reported to me that Dr. Fee warned them all that he knew I would object to the condition of the school.He told them, "As soon as she sees that room she is going to start demanding improvements.We have to agree right now that we are not going to spend a d__n cent on that discarded building."Well, I accepted the challenge, but I concentrated on Dr. Fee.I didn't know the condition -- or Dr. Fee's ultimatum -- until the second week of August.My first request was for calcimine for the rough cement walls."Nothing doing!" -- "I will get the parents to do the work if you will furnish the paint." -- "No!"I went to the drug store the next day and the next.He finally consented to buy the paint.I next approached him on slate paint for the discolored and stained blackboards."Nothing doing!You got the walls painted." -- "But who can teach any subect without blackboards?" -- "Make do." -- "All right, I'll tell the people you're a make-do doctor!" -- "Darn you! Where can we get that paint?" -- "That's your problem.You ought to know."I got the paint.Then the real fight started.I told him the children had apparently been using an old rusty bucket and dipper for drinking water, and I wouldn't stand for that."-- "Then get someone to bring a clean bucket and dipper!" -- "You, a doctor, are advising nine children to drink out of the same dipper?" -- "Then tell them to bring their own cups!" -- and fill them from a dipper?They will use the dipper; you know they will." -- "No! I tell you, no."The next morning I arrived at the store before he did.When he drove up, he got out of his buggy, swept the ground with his hat and said "My lady, you win!"And I hugged him!I postponed the school one week - on my own authority - and the mothers came and helped me get everything clean and sparkling.Country school teaching was fun!After Lynn and I were married and living in California, Dr. Fee's maiden sister died and he had become quite feeble.He had no children.So Lynn and I invited him to come to stay with us.He said he couldn't travel, but was kind enough to say he wished I had been his daughter. He was financially able to hire care, so I didn't worry about him.
NOTE:There is a little more Briggsdale history in my grandmother's memoirs.My great grandfather Parks Ira Kennedy was in the well business.His wife, Ellen Culver Kennedy, was the second woman in Briggsdale (first was the wife of the newspaperman).My grandmother's memoirs include funny stories about horses she rode to get to school, and some great stores of antics the students pulled on her.