Daly Fund Research Project

Very happy to report that Bernard Daly’s Promise has been included in Michael Nietzel’s (Forbes education columnist) list of the best higher education books of 2022. This what he had to say:

“My sleeper book of the year is Sam Stern’s Bernard Daly’s Promise: The Enduring Legacy of a Place-Based Scholarship. It’s an inspirational tale about how Bernard Daly, an Irish emigre to the U.S., established a college scholarship for high school students in Lake County, Oregon with a million-dollar bequest in 1920. Now - more than 100 years and 2000 recipients later - Stern, the retired dean of Oregon State University’s College of Education, shows how one frugal man’s philanthropy changed - and continues to change - the lives of so many individuals. A terrific read, as heartwarming as it is scholarly.” (Link to full article http://bit.ly/3VsY3fV)

While it’s not likely to be a best seller, I’m glad to know that it’s being read, and that the impact of Bernard Daly’s generosity is spreading well beyond Lake County. It’s certainly had an impact on me. My very messy desk is still covered with notes and materials I used in the research and writing. Though the book is done, I’m reluctant to put them away and let go of the project I started a decade ago… perhaps in the new year.

Happy holidays and best wishes for 2023, the 101st year of the Daly Scholarship.

Daly’s life was buffeted by great, often tragic, historic events, yet he thrived and did much to improve the situation wherever he lived. A remarkable life and, with the impact of his now hundred-year-old scholarship, an even more remarkable legacy.

On September 27th, as part of the Deschutes Historical Museum “Worthy History” series, I’ll give a talk on Bernard Daly and his scholarship in Bend at the Worthy Brewery. More information about the talk is here (https://www.eventbrite.com/e/worthy-history-with-the-deschutes-historical-museum-tickets-409026969677). Worthy history indeed…

Hope to see you there – I hear the beer is good.

This month is the 100th anniversary of the Daly scholarship. It was a hundred years ago in June of 1922, when the Daly Fund trustees met in Lakeview to select the first scholarship recipients. It was a big deal then and it still is.

It’s hard to overstate the uniqueness of the Daly scholarship. Daly’s vision that not less than fifteen students would have all their expenses provided for four years of college was unusual. There was no scholarship like that in Oregon or perhaps the entire country. To get a sense of just how extraordinary it was, the 1922-23 University of Oregon catalog identified only two scholarship funds available to students.

One was the new Daly scholarship that would provide full funding each year for four years to at least fifteen students from Lake County. The other was the Mary Spiller scholarship, which covered room and board for one student for one year. The predominant type of student aid at the University of Oregon and all other colleges at the time was interest-free loans. In that same year, twelve loan funds were available at the University of Oregon, none of which provided full funding for all four years. The Daly Fund was unique.

Since then, there have been more than 2,000 Daly scholarship recipients, and the evidence of the scholarship’s impact is stunning. It is a remarkable success story that has been hiding in plain sight in remote Lake County for a hundred years. With the publication of “Bernard Daly’s Promise” by OSU Press (in collaboration with the Dr. Daly Project), I’m hoping many more people will learn about Bernard Daly and the impact of his scholarship.

To commemorate the 100th anniversary, there will be a special celebration in Lakeview June 24th and 25th. I’ll be at the Lake County Library on the 24th from 4:00 – 5:00 and then at the Elks Lodge where I’ll give a talk about the book following the 100-year celebration dinner. Dinner tickets and information is available at the Lake County Chamber of Commerce. Hope to see you there.

For more about Bernard Daly’s Promise, see this just-published Forbes article https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2022/06/01/what-may-be-americas-oldest-place-based-college-scholarship-celebrates-100th-anniversary/?sh=28eb2a264629

… and this link which includes a preview of the book’s foreword and introduction https://linktr.ee/sam.stern

What May Be America’s Oldest Place-Based College Scholarship Celebrates 100th Anniversary This June marks the 100th anniversary of what is in all likelihood the nation’s oldest, continuously operating place-based college scholarship.

A very special new year. This year is the 100-year anniversary of the first awarding of the Bernard Daly scholarship. I learned about the scholarship in the early 1980s from my OSU colleague Dan Dunham, who grew up in Lakeview and received the scholarship in 1954. The story of Bernard Daly and his scholarship stuck with me and many years later at an OSU alumni gathering I attended while serving as dean of OSU’s College of Education, I met Sue (Ogle) Densmore. When Sue mentioned that she was from Lakeview, I asked about the scholarship and learned that Sue and both of her sisters had been recipients, and so were their parents, Jim and Dorothy Ogle. At the time, I was planning to step down as dean and return to a faculty position before retiring, and I was looking for a research project I could start and possibly work on in retirement. When Sue suggested I go to the annual breakfast her parents hosted at their ranch on Labor Day weekend, I jumped at the opportunity.

That visit in 2010 was the beginning of my research on the scholarship and its remarkable impact. It’s been quite a journey over this past decade – more than a hundred interviews; a web-based survey; searches through archival records; many Facebook and blog posts; and a bicycle ride across the country, stopping to interview Daly recipients along the way. What started out as a research project turned into book. It’s taken me a while but with the help of many people, “Bernard Daly’s Promise: The Enduring Legacy of a Place-based Scholarship” will be published by OSU Press in June of this year, in time for the special 100-year celebration that will be held in Lakeview June 24 – 26.

“Bernard Daly’s Promise” is available for pre-order from OSU Press (https://bit.ly/3n0vMOF) at a 20% discount (Promo Code SP 22).

Note: Today, January 5th, marks another anniversary. Early in the morning on January 5th of 1920, Bernard Daly died while on a train to San Francisco where he was to be treated by medical specialists. He was accompanied by Dr. Charles Liethead, his Lakeview physician; Fred Reynolds, his longtime business partner; and Pearl Hall, the love of his life. Daly never made it to San Francisco. He died on route, near Livermore, California, at 5:30 A.M. on Monday, January 5. On the following Sunday, a crowd of about seven hundred—almost everyone who lived in or near Lakeview—attended his memorial service. Bernard Daly’s legacy lives on through the people and communities that have been impacted by his scholarship.

Not to be forgotten. For the first time in a couple of years, our family will come together this next week to celebrate the holidays. We do so with a renewed sense of the preciousness of time together, and also the nearness of tragedy. It’s especially jarring when tragedy occurs in the midst of celebration as it did on Christmas Eve in 1894 when a terrible fire occurred in the community hall on the second floor of the Chrisman general store in Silver Lake. Though it is the deadliest fire to have occurred in Oregon history, until this month it has not been included in the Oregon Encyclopedia, an authoritative and free resource on all things Oregon.

Several years ago, I added an entry on Bernard Daly (https://bit.ly/32j6KTj), and now one on the Silver Lake Fire (https://bit.ly/32kSHwR). Take a look at the entry and while you’re there, check out some of the other entries related to Lake County – Abert Rim, Lakeview, Reub Long, and Paisley Caves. I’m hoping others will be added in the years to come.

My best wishes to all for happy holidays and the new year, the 100-year anniversary of the first awarding of the Bernard Daly scholarship.

Note: Many thanks to Larry Landis, former OSU director of Special Collections and Archives who first encouraged me to write an entry on Bernard Daly for the Oregon Encyclopedia.

Above and beyond. Bernard Daly’s will is best remembered for the bequest that created the Daly scholarship. Although not as large, there were other bequests, including one that provided an annuity of $1,200 each year for ten years for the …

“… expenses of sick, maimed, or injured patients, residents of Lake County, Oregon, who may be brought to its hospital, and who are unable to bear such expenses; it being my will and desire that they receive the same careful nursing, medical and surgical attention, and the full benefits of such hospital, as other patients in so far as this bequest may allow.”

About the time the support provided by Daly’s bequest ended, the Daly scholarship began to have even greater impact on the Lakeview hospital. Daly scholarship recipients, Connie and Joycelin Robertson, and their younger brother, Louis, all became doctors and returned to Lakeview to practice at the hospital. Over the years, many other Daly recipients have returned to work at the hospital, including Abby (Tracy) Finetti, a 2000 Lakeview High graduate and Daly recipient who began working as an emergency nurse at the Lake District Hospital in 2007.

Abby is a high achiever; she is one of only 13 emergency nurses in Oregon who has three specialty certifications (emergency nurse, pediatric emergency nurse, and trauma nurse certifications). Abby has a lot of letters after her name (BSN, RN, CEN, CPEN, TCRN), and she’s earned them all. Specialty certification is not required, and it takes a lot of studying. Abby told me she studied for eight months for her first specialty certification exam, and then took a two-day review course in Reno before taking and passing the exam. Abby isn’t the only nurse at Lake District Hospital with a lot of letters after her name; more than half of Lake District Hospital nurses have at least one nursing specialty certification.

That’s a very good thing for the larger Lake County community as it’s considered a “frontier medicine area” – an area with less than six people per square mile. With less than a person per square mile, Lake County is especially frontier. The more rural and remote, the greater the dangers associated with health incidents. Lack of specialized surgical equipment and expertise, and the time pressure associated with great distances all pose challenges. As Abby told me, “If you’re in a car wreck and already an hour away from our hospital, the deck is stacked against you – we need to be on the top of our game.”

When she was interviewed by the Board for the Certification of Emergency Nursing, Abby credited the Daly scholarship as contributing to her drive for achievement (I think she had quite a bit to begin with). She told me that as a pre-nursing student at Oregon Institute of Technology (OIT), she would meet with the Daly Fund advisor who checked to be sure that she maintained a full load and the required GPA, then gave her the check for that year. Abby isn’t the only Lake District Hospital nurse who was a Daly scholarship recipient. Mesa (Partin) Greenfild (RN WOCN) is a 1994 Daly recipient. It seems that high expectations and accountability came with the scholarship.

If you walk in the main entrance to the Lake District Hospital in Lakeview and turn right, you’ll see a row of photographs of each doctor who practiced at the hospital since Bernard Daly. If you turn to the left, you’ll see a row of photographs of all the nurses that have received specialty certifications. Above and beyond.

In 2010, on my first trip to Lakeview, I made a visit to the school district office, the small gray building with a big sign that reads, “School District No. 7.” On the sign, there is no indication of the of the district name other than the number 7. It’s an anachronism (from the Greek “ana” and “khronos”) meaning against time – something that made more sense the past than in the current time.

The 7 in the school district title means that it was the seventh school district established in Lake County. A hundred years ago, when the Daly scholarship was first awarded, there were about 40 school districts in Lake County; today, as a result of closures and consolidations, there are only five: Adel, North Lake, Paisley, Plush, and Lake County School District No. 7. So, the school district more commonly known as the Lakeview School District is now number seven in a group of five.

A hundred years ago, when small schools were scattered throughout the county, the job of county school superintendent was quite important. From 1921 to 1928, the county superintendent was Pearl Hall, Bernard Daly’s dear friend and the love of his life (I promise to write more about Pearl in a future post). Pearl wrote a description of Lake County schools for the 1923 Biennial Report of the Oregon Superintendent of Public Instruction that reflected well-deserved pride in Lake County schools. At a time when less than 20% of America’s youth graduated from high school, Pearl Hall reported that Lake County had four high schools: Lakeview, Union, Paisley, and the newly built Silver Lake High School. Pearl closed her entry on Lake County schools with news of the new Daly scholarship and its impact

“Since the Bernard Daly educational fund is available there is an incentive for eighth grade pupils to enter high school Practically 90 percent of the eighth-grade students of last year have entered school this year. Nineteen Lake County high school graduates entered Oregon state institutions this year on scholarships from this fund.”

Astonishing – at a time when most kids stopped formal education at the eighth grade, almost all of Lake County’s kids were going on to high school and many of them went on to college. Thanks to talented teachers, those kids were well prepared. Take a look at the yearbook photo of high school faculty from the early 1920s. You might recognize the name, Mrs. L. F. Conn, wife of the district attorney, Lafayette Conn, and mother of Ted Conn, the long-time Daly Fund secretary/treasurer.

I’ve been particularly fascinated by Orin K. Burrell, who went on to a distinguished career as a business professor at the University of Oregon. A prolific researcher and writer, he wrote a wonderful book on the history of banking in Oregon (“Gold in the woodpile: An informal history of banking in Oregon”) that includes a description of how Bernard Daly became a banker and established the Bank of Lakeview. While on the faculty at the University of Oregon, O.K. Burrell served as the faculty advisor for the “Daly students” and he was the whistle blower who called attention to the issues associated with the selection of scholarship recipients in 1936 (I wrote about this in an earlier post).

More than a decade has passed since my first visit to Lakeview. Since then, I’ve met with four “No. 7” superintendents (Sean Gallagher, Will Cahill, Michael Carter, and Howard Ottman) as well as a great many teachers, and students. I’m deeply impressed with Lake County’s strong commitment to education; it’s a legacy that will pay great dividends for years to come.

On the right side of history. Though he was often in the minority, a great many of the positions that Daly held a hundred years ago have proven to be on the right side of history. Consider his position on education. Simply put, Daly believed that education, all the way through college, should be available to everyone.

This was an incredibly radical idea in his time. Prior to 1900, most Oregonians opposed public high schools; providing access to college for the masses was not even a consideration. In the public high school debates of the time, the loudest and most influential voice was that of Harvey Scott, the editor of the Oregonian from 1865 to 1910. In his editorials, Scott argued against public high schools. An excerpt from his April 16, 1879 Oregonian editorial.

“The laboring classes are the real sufferers for the extravagant expenditures in the name of free education, which would otherwise seek investment in organized industries that would afford their children employment and make their households happy… it is the laboring classes who ultimately pay for teaching music and foreign languages to the thousands of people who afterwards become drones on society. The only republican idea in education is to teach people enough to take care of themselves and keep out of jail; but the cunning of those whose aim is to live without work has dazzled the bone and sinew of the country into the support of a system which gives them double toil in supporting their own children as drones. The conclusion is this: Give every child a good common school English education at public expense, and then stop.”

As has been said, “it’s hard to argue with someone who buys ink by the barrel.” That’s one of the reasons why out of the forty-five U.S. states in 1900, Oregon ranked third from the bottom in the number of high schools (per population) with only four. Scott’s political influence was considerable. After he publicly withdrew his twenty-year opposition to public high schools in 1901, more than 80 high schools were created in the following decade.

It wasn’t only education. Daly and Scott were on opposite sides of the question of women’s right to vote and the gold standard. In Daly’s campaign for the U.S. Congress in 1900, he opposed the gold standard which definitely put him in the minority. Harvey Scott and the Republicans supported maintaining the gold standard while Daly and the Democrats were in favor of a bimetallic standard of gold and silver which would have the effect of expanding the money supply. Daly lost the election and the gold standard remained until it was largely abandoned in the early 1930s during the Depression. It was re-instated in a limited form after World War II; then on August 15, 1971, fifty years ago this month, Nixon completely severed the connection between our monetary system and gold.

In matters of education, women’s rights, and money, it does seems that Daly was on the right side of history…

Not without criticism.

I’ve been researching the life of Bernard Daly and the impact of the scholarship he created a century ago. It’s an incredible story and Daly was an impressive man. By almost all accounts, Bernard Daly was remarkably successful, prosperous, and generous. I say almost all accounts because Daly did have his critics. I shouldn’t be surprised as Daly was in the public eye for almost all of his adult life, and his wealth and his frugal nature attracted much attention. In the spirit of full disclosure, I thought I’d devote this Facebook post to his critics.

I found some of the criticism in newspaper articles, none from Lake County papers. During Daly’s life, newspapers were very political and partisan. Most Oregon newspapers strongly supported Republicans (the majority party of the time), and Daly was a life-long Democrat.

Here are a couple of quotes from newspaper articles.

“In the recent fire at Lakeview Bernard Daly lost some property but he is still a rich man and the effort being made to create sympathy for him is absurd. He holds, for instance, $30,000 in Lake county warrants which are interest-bearing and non-taxable. Some of his property was well insured, and his drug store is still doing business. Poor man!” Lincoln County Leader, June 1, 1900

“During his lifetime Bernard Daly of Lake County was not highly regarded by his fellow citizens. He was a physician and capitalist and lost no opportunity to add to his possessions. He was regarded as a progressive by the boosters and apparently cared nothing at all for the advancement of the locality in which he lived. Since his death, however, public opinion in Lake County regarding him as radically changed. At his death by the terms of a will then made public, a fund of something like a million dollars was turned over as a trust fund for the education of Lake County young people and in a manner which advertises the county in a most advantageous manner.” The Monmouth Herald, December 8, 1922

I was surprised to see that this was the lead paragraph in the story announcing that six Daly Fund students were attending the Monmouth Normal School, today’s Western Oregon University. I would have thought the focus of the article would be on the students and their good fortune to have received scholarships.

As might be expected, there was also criticism of Daly in his political campaigns. In an article on the 1900 congressional election*, the Oregonian, a strongly Republican paper, wrote this about Daly,

“The main fight this year is between Daly and Tongue. While it is Daly’s home, he has many enemies here. They are making a desperate effort to carry the county against him. A stranger arriving here even before the campaign was thought of would never have expected to learn that Dr. Daly held office or would stand any show in this county. He is the most universally “cussed” man in the county. He is rarely ever spoke of favorably by any man. Yet he has been in office for more than 10 years and has never been defeated in this county for anything. There are no serious charges made against him, but everybody talks about Daly, and his enemies hate him worse than they do a snake. His friends say it all jealousy. They say that Daly has accumulated property here, always manages to succeed in whatever he undertakes, and that this has caused a jealousy that has grown to madness among his opponents. They declare they will defeat him this time, but a Daly man started out yesterday and offered to bet $50 with every man that would take him up that Daly would carry the county. The bet is public and notorious, but no man has yet covered it.” The Oregonian, May 4, 1900

And, there is the story of Ted Conn and his father, Lafayette (Lafe) Conn.** Ted graduated from Lakeview High School in 1926 and wanted to apply for the Daly Fund, but his father would not allow it because Daly beat him in the 1916 Circuit Court Judge election, and the two men had a very bitter relationship. Against his father’s wishes, Ted applied for and received the scholarship for his senior year at the University of Oregon. After law school, Ted returned to Lakeview and joined his dad’s law office. Ironically, Ted went on to serve as the secretary-treasurer for the Daly Fund for about forty years.

Daly’s life was not without criticism, but I suspect the criticism tells us more about the critics, than Daly.

Notes:
*Daly’s 1900 campaign for the U.S. Congress was short-lived as he abandoned campaigning to return to Lakeview to assist in rebuilding the town following the tragic fire.
**I had been puzzled by the fact that Ted Conn graduated from high school in 1926 but did not receive the scholarship until 1929, until I read this account of the animosity between Lafe Conn and Daly on the wonderfully informative Facebook site, ‘We Love Lake County!’