Lee, William R.

Lodge Spending $45,000 on Five Ottawa County Children Who Were Admitted to Mooseheart Illinois- Forty-five thousand dollars and more has been or will be spent on the five children from Ottawa county Oklahoma, who have been admitted to the school at Mooseheart, established by the Loyal Order of Moose for the academic and vocational training of the children of its deceased and disabled members. Two of these are now in the high school, two others have been graduated and are doing well, and one little boy died of diphtheria after being here three years. They are the two sons and three daughters of the late William R. Lee, a zinc and lead miner, who was admitted to membership by Gateway lodge No. 1479 of the Moose order and was stricken by tuberculosis so that he is unable to work. His wife had died in March 1914, of heart disease. There was no property to care for the children and the local lodge asked for their admission here from the board of Mooseheart governors, of which the chairman is James J. Davis, Secretary of Labor in President Coolidge's cabinet, and the five were brought here Jul 14, 1925, their ages then ranging from less than 2 years old to 12. Mabel Leona Lee, the eldest, is now nearing 23. She was graduated from the high school in August, 1922, remaining a year longer to take the normal course, finished her studies at the States Teachers' college at DeKalb Illinois, and is now teaching school at Freeport Illinois. Her brother, William Leslie Lee, now 21 years old, learned the trade of electrician and after his graduation from the high school in June, 1924, went to work for the Western Electric Company in Chicago, where he is doing well. Opal Lee, 17 years old last November, is a junior in the high school and is taking shorthand, typing and bookkeeping as the means whereby she will earn her living after she enters the world without. She has a good voice and sings in the glee club, also playing first violin in the philharmonic orchestra. She is good in athletics, too, being captain of the punch ball team of her residence hall and on the baseball and volley ball teams as well a good all-around American girl. Her sister, Vergie Mae Lee, is 16 years of age and a freshman in the high school, and is taking sewing and the art of dressmaking for her vocation and is doing well at it. The education given at Mooseheart is expensive, but the feeling is that money was never better spent. On the religious side, every child is carefully reared in the faith of his parents, which is settled before he enters the school. His academic training prepares him for college, and an unusual proportion of the children obtain more schooling there or in a technical institute. Every boy learns a standard trade and every girl some suitable vocation by means of which the world can be confidently faced or the way be earned for more education. Every graduate of the school has made good throughout the 13 years of Mooseheart's existence, and their services are sought for the neighboring cities. Music, which is an essential part of the school life, is taught to every child with talent either vocal or instrumental, and frequently becomes a source of income in later life. All the children are comfortably housed in small resident halls where the girls learn the art of housekeeping in addition to all the rest. This home life enables the matrons to teach every child good manners. The food is cooked in these homes and is wholesome, abundant and savory, prescribed weekly by an expert dietician. The children choose their own clothing at the school department store, and there are no uniforms worn. The children, too, have their hair cut by the school barber in the style each prefers.

Funeral services were incomplete today for William R. Lee, retired mine hoisterman who died in the Welch Oklahoma hospital at 3:30 a.m. Sunday. A resident of the Quapaw and Picher Oklahoma communities since 1916, Lee had been seriously ill for the past two weeks. He was 71 years old. Survivors include his wife, Mrs. Edith Lee of the home here; two sons, Raymond Lee, Butte Montana, and Roy Lee, Osborne Idaho; a daughter, Mrs. Mable Victor, Douthat Oklahoma; a step-son, Howard Brown, Malibu California; a step-daughter, Mrs. Opal Fahnestock, Grain Valley Missouri, 12 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. Arrangements for services and burial will be announced by the Hunter funeral home of Picher.