Remembering Harriet Jones, who paved way for preschool
The Friendship Children's Center, a pioneering preschool, has been here nearly 90 years.
Its survival is a tribute to the determination of its founder, Harriet Blanche Jones, an educator with a good idea and the strength to bring it into reality.
Once the face of nursery education in Rochester, Jones had a radio program, published children's poems, raised money a penny at a time, using cute pictures of worried children to open hearts and wallets.
Always she argued that the preschool-aged children of the working poor needed to be cared for, first for the children's sake, but also to free up parents so they could go off to work.
Born in 1878 in Rochester, Jones was already an experienced kindergarten teacher before she went to England in the 1920s to learn about nursery schools.
She then taught in the Rochester School District, all the while advocating for the creation of nursery schools.
"I started talking (about) the idea, but everyone thought I was kind of crazy," she later told a Democrat and Chronicle reporter.
In 1928 (or maybe 1926, reports vary), Jones resigned from the school district and launched what was then called the Friendship Nursery, a program that admitted young children at a minimal cost (10 cents a day) or for free if their families had insufficient funds.
For several years, the school moved from one temporary quarter to another. Money was always short. In 1937, a picture in the Democrat and Chronicle showed a shivering line of children. "They're 'Out in Cold' if Nursery Doesn't Find Home," the headline declared.
No way. It was the middle of the Depression, but Jones was an inventive and persistent fund-raiser who went from service club to service club on behalf of her school.
And she had help. One drive led by Uncle Dan's Birthday Club of the Democrat and Chronicle brought in dimes. (Basically, 10 cents toward the fund would get a kid's name in the newspaper on his or her birthday.)
When she had enough money to get started, though not enough to cover all the costs, Jones broke ground at 310 Fernwood Ave., in northeast Rochester. Newspaper photos of worried children (one shows three plaintive toddlers like prisoners behind a wire fence) brought in more money, and the center opened its doors in 1940.
There's been remodeling and retooling since, but the building's mission endures. Its doors open at 6:30 a.m. and it takes in children as young as 12 months old. The emphasis, as always, is on preparing the children for school.
Their parents receive government subsidies because their jobs do not pay enough to cover preschool costs. In addition, the center, which now has 60 children enrolled, receives money from private sources, just as it receives donated labor.
Marisela Miranda of Rochester drops her four children off when the center's doors open at 6:30 a.m. Then she goes off to her job with an asbestos removal company.
She's happy her children are in a safe place and that they are learning. "The teachers are awesome," Miranda says. "They care about the kids. They teach them a lot."
Money is always tight at the center, but the ghost of Harriet Jones would seem to be on the case. "We have a halo over us," says Joi Digennaro-McMurtry, the executive director.
She tells how a man showed up in a Lincoln Town Car.
"I hear you do good stuff," he told Digennaro-McMurtry. "What do you need?"
"New floors and carpeting," she said.
"I'll write a check," he said. Which he did.
This month, work is underway on "Take A Seat, Make a Difference," a project spearheaded by DRAW, a group of female artists.
Wooden folding chairs from the center have been sent out to artists in the community. They have turned them into stunning art objects that will be on display at the library's Rundel Building downtown and then auctioned off, the proceeds going to the center.
"We will always be in business because of good fortune and friends," Digennaro-McMurtry says, sounding very much like Harriet Jones, an optimistic educator with a very good idea.
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On Remarkable Rochester
Retired Senior Editor Jim Memmott reflects on what makes Rochester distinctively Rochester, its history, its habits, its people. Contact him at: (585) 278-8012 or jmemmott@DemocratandChronicle.com or Remarkable Rochester, Box 274, Geneseo, NY, 14454.
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Remarkable Rochesterians
For her contributions to children's lives in Rochester, let's include this educator in the list of Remarkable Rochesterians that can be found at RocRoots.com.
Harriet Blanche Jones (1878-1972): In the early 1920s, this Rochester native and pioneering educator traveled to England to study nursery programs for the working poor. She soon founded the Friendship Nursery, now the Friendship Children's Center in Rochester. A tireless advocate for preschool education, she kept the nursery going on a shoestring during the Depression, but managed to build its current home on Fernwood Avenue in the city by 1940. After her retirement in 1943, she continued to work in education and also wrote poetry and stories for children.