Where is Ms. Frances When You Need Her?

 

 

                 Where is Ms. Francis When You Need Her?

 

A friend and former co-worker, Ron Collin, would occasionally spout this question when a grammatical error or some social misstep presented itself during our conversations. There were three of us (Ron’s) on the payroll and we liked to get together occasionally over coffee in the bank’s canteen – a space that left no room to swing a cat. We worked in a small bank in Chicago’s Lincoln Square neighborhood.

The question itself was rhetorical and had no significance unless you were a “Baby-Boomer.” We all were.

I attended a parochial elementary school on Chicago’s west side and Ron’s remarks would always conjure images in my mind of a young girl running through the school halls or the adjacent playground swinging a large brass school bell announcing classes were about to begin in the morning, cease at the end of the school day or resume after recess or lunch. An 8^th Grade girl was always selected for this duty. Girls went to choir; rang the school bell and assisted “Sister” in other ways. They might help with a nun's paperwork; stamp out the chalk dust from the erasers on the back wall of the school building or spread sweeping compound on the classroom’s well-worn oak floors before pulling out the push broom. (The girls strained debris from the compound for re-use until it was no longer serviceable. The school knew how to economize.) Girls seemed always only too happy to help Sister. “Kiss Ups” we called them. Boys – being boys had difficulty staying out of trouble and girls stood ready to keep them in line. (Future mothers in training, I suspected.) If there was a “snitch,”  the informer always wore a skirt and a beanie. Snitching was another self-imposed duty some girls liked to assume.

 

Boys were allowed to redeem themselves by supplying grunt work. Boys did the heavy lifting, hoisting oak milk cases from the Hawthorn Melody Farms’ Divco milk truck on school day mornings, bringing them inside, up three flights of stairs, delivering the pint-sized glass bottles of white or chocolate to the appropriate classroom and dragging the empty cases downstairs for pick-up the following day. When winter arrived, the boys helped shovel snow or spread cinders on the icy walks.

At Christmas time, the taller and thought-to-be stronger boys were “voluntold” to bring up the Nativity Scene statuary from the church’s deep basement via the exposed stairway. I can still recall a treacherous climb of seemingly endless stairs in winter cold with a 40 lb. Three Kings Camel in my arms and nervous Sister peering down from above, her habit fluttering in the wintery gusts. “Drop this,” I thought,” and I am doomed.”  Then there were the “Patrol Boys,” young men in teams of two thought to be sufficiently trustworthy to station themselves on nearby intersections in the morning, afternoon and shortly before school let out, to help ensure the safety of younger school children. They worked in all weather. Boys wearing white patrol belts were perched on three different intersections frequented by kids coming to school or going home. It was considered a rite of passage so- to -speak for the former 7^th Graders now entering eighth grade to be selected for this duty. The patrol belt could be folded in such a way that you could hang it on your pants belt. Wearing it was a sign of distinction. (It was important to find someone to teach you how to fold it. I still have mine, but I dare not unfold it.) The school would appoint a Patrol Captain and a Lieutenant. (I still have my Lieutenant’s badge.) We were told never to stop traffic or direct it when crossing the kids; we did both. It gave us a sense of empowerment. Adults in vehicles had to listen to us. As I said, it was hard to not get into trouble. Perhaps this was a harbinger of things to come. Later in life I became somewhat of a specialist in directing traffic as an auxiliary police officer.

My grade school is gone; the building was demolished since there was no longer a need. The sound of the school bell, however, hovers in my head, so does the one Ms. Francis used. I had attended Ding Dong school earlier. It was a TV pre-school. I can even remember the song Ms. Frances sang when the show began each morning.

 

Ohio born Frances Rappaport graduated from the University of Chicago and taught school in Evanston, Illinois for several years before earning a master’s degree at Columbia University in New York. Returning to Chicago, she worked as supervisor of nursing schools, a kindergarten director in Winnetka, Illinois, earned a doctorate from Northwestern University and became chair of what is now called Roosevelt University.

 

Married to Harvey Horwich in 1901, it was in Chicago that she developed a children’s TV show intended to engage children and listen to what they had to say. “Adults,” she said, “.... should address children slowly and clearly to stimulate proper speech.”  She got down to the children’s level and respected kids for what they knew and what they could do. The show,” Ding Dong School” debuted on NBC’s Channel 5 station in 1952 but quickly moved to New York where it was broadcast nationally because it was a huge hit. The network appointed Ms. Frances as director of all children’s programing, standing her ground and objecting when NBC wanted to move from a 30 minute to a 60-minute format; allowing only four commercials (and not six) during each program and insisting that trade-marked “Ding Dong School” products like art tablets and pencils be inexpensively priced. Ding Dong School later moved to Los Angeles and into syndication.

 

Each show began with Ms. Frances ringing her trademark school bell.

Ding Dong School was television’s noblest attempt to provide quality programming for pre-school children and Miss Frances was to one generation of youngsters what Fred Rogers was to those that followed. Ms. Frances and Mr. Rogers could undoubtedly have been neighbors in TV land. Perhaps they are now.