By Vanessa Fultz, Democrat Reporter
vanessa.fultz@gaflnews.com
Frances Skipper had lots of firsts during her tenure at the Suwannee County Sheriff's Office. One of them was the privilege of serving as the first female sheriff's deputy for Suwannee County.
Though former sheriff Sim Howell (1949-1953) hired Skipper to do office work, she wore many hats during her 35-year career. Skipper, 82, served as the first formal record- and bookkeeper for the sheriff's office. She also processed warrants, bonds and fines.
"That was where the records got started in the sheriff's office," Skipper said, noting before the system was set up those inquiring of arrest records had to search the jail book for information.
Skipper brought to the job bookkeeping skills she gained while working in a judge's office in Dixie County, and set up a formal system. At her request, the sheriff purchased the first set of filing cabinets and folders for the office. Later, former sheriff Duke McCallister (1963-1969), granted her request for a break room in the sheriff's office as part of courthouse renovations.
Skipper shared an office with the sheriff. The room contained little more than two wooden desks, a vault and two old school bus seats that were welded together to seat guests.
Though Skipper retired partly because she didn't want to learn the new technology of computers, she described her first means of typing as "old school."
"You have never seen a typewriter like the typewriter they had. I always said Noah brought it over on the ark," she said with a laugh.
Skipper's starting pay was $100 a month, an amount she was happy with at that time. She worked six days a week -- Monday-Saturday.
When Skipper was hired in 1951, the sheriff's office looked a little like the one in the TV town of Mayberry. The sheriff had three employees -- Skipper, one deputy and a jailer, who lived in an apartment above the jail. Today there are 103 employees in the office, including the sheriff, deputies, office personnel and other workers under the sheriff's office such as animal control officers, dispatchers, jailers and bailiffs.
Skipper had arrest authority, which was necessary when she worked as the jail matron and when she served as bailiff on occasion. As matron, Skipper searched the female inmates and attended to their personal needs. Skipper even picked up an inmate's children and brought them to the jail to visit their mother in one case.
Ruby McCollum, a black woman who had killed a prominent white doctor, was perhaps the best known inmate for which Skipper was responsible.
She also served as the original dispatcher when the sheriff's office got its first radio.
Perhaps what Skipper will be most remembered for is her fiscal responsibility in managing sheriff's office funds -- a responsibility she didn't take lightly.
"She was tight with the purse strings of the sheriff's office," said Sheriff Tony Cameron, who worked as a deputy during her tenure.
Skipper noted that in 35 years she never had a bad audit. She was such a good manager of the finances that sheriffs in other counties would call on her to help train their bookkeepers, she said.
During courthouse renovations in 1965 a new sheriff's office was constructed. It included a walk-in vault, which housed the finances and confiscated items.
Though Skipper got a new office as part of the renovations, she spent much of her time at a desk in the vault. Placing it there was her idea.
"She looked at the wall inside that vault," said former sheriff Al Williams, who was a deputy when the two worked together.
Williams said the employees were closely knit and enjoyed a good laugh from time to time.
One day when Skipper returned to her desk in the vault, a former chief deputy had placed on the bulletin board a newspaper clipping of a skeleton sitting behind a desk typing on a typewriter. On it he had written, "Miss Frances is dedicated."
Williams said as a joke he would run four to five feet of tape off Skipper's adding machine, draw cartoon characters on the paper and roll it back up.
"She would say, 'Al Williams!'" he recalls.
Skipper noted she was so engrossed in her work that often she wouldn't notice Williams' prank until later.
One day Williams decided to play a prank on Skipper when making a bank deposit.
"The money bag was four inches thick," he said. "She said, 'Now if it's one penny off, you bring it back to me.'"
After Williams made the deposit he filled the bag with newspaper before returning it.
"What was wrong with it?" Williams recalls Skipper asking.
The two had a good laugh.
When Skipper turned 60, officials were planning to upgrade the office with computers. Former sheriff Robert Leonard (1973-1997) was Skipper's boss at the time.
"When the computers came in I told sheriff Leonard, 'This is it. I'm 60 years old and I'm going to retire now,'" she said. "'I'm not learning anything new. I'm not touching a computer.'"
Leonard tried to get Skipper to stay on two more years, but she kept her promise. She retired that year -- in 1986 -- and never touched a computer.
"To this day I don't know nothing about a computer," she said.
Skipper worked under five sheriffs -- Sim P. Howell, Hugh Lewis, Duke McCallister, J.M. "Buddy" Phillips and Robert Leonard.
"They were all good to work for," she said.
Skipper might be credited with passing down a love for the sheriff's office to her daughter, Sheila Knight. Knight served as the second female in the office with her mother. Knight is now the dispatch supervisor for Suwannee County.
"That's all I've known. She taught me everything I know," Knight said.
