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Sarasota News Leader May 3, 2013 Her father did have a ready welcome for any fish he did not want to take home, Stieff points out. During the Depression, especially, the family felt almost an obligation to give some of the catch to families in Overtown — now the site of the Rosemary District — where the African-American residents predominantly lived, she points out. Page 77 classes were held in a building in McClellan Park. "You didn't have grades," she notes. Instead, the students met in groups, and each group had its own cabin. "Anybody you ever run into that went to that school in those days will tell you it was different from any other school they went to, and they loved it," Stieff says. Fishing, in fact, was one of the big lures for The school also had a number of boarders, her dad to move to a new community, Stieff and Harrison and Gavin liked to keep them notes. happy after the regular school week ended, Burns was working in Chicago when the in- Stieff says. Therefore, "if you were good, you ternationally prominent resident of that city, could go back to school" on the weekends to Bertha Palmer, returned from her first trip to play with the boarders. Sarasota and talked of the town to the local Each year, she continues, the school saw newspapers. Palmer "described this paradise changes in its routine. However, a typical day and that the fishing was so good," Stieff says. would find the students gathering for a meetIf the town was good enough for Bertha Palm- ing first thing. Around 10:45 a.m., a bell would er and the fish were that bountiful, Stieff says, ring and the students would enjoy a snack of milk and crackers. "Then you could play for her father felt he had to give it a look. 15 minutes," she says. Burns ended up buying out the Florida Mortgage and Investment Co. from the scion of At noon, the students would wend their way one of the founding families, John Hamilton along a path through the woods to go swimGillespie. Burns later was a business partner ming in the bay for half an hour. "Then you of another prominent figure in Sarasota's his- had a hot dinner." tory — circus entrepreneur John Ringling — Each child was allowed to request small porbut Stieff says she never really knew Ringling. tions, she points out, "but you were to eat ev- SCHOOL DAYS With her own love of the outdoors, Stieff has warm memories of The Out-of-Door School, which was founded in 1924 by Fanneal Harrison and Catherine Gavin — Gabby and Nena, everyone called them, she points out. "Wonderful, wonderful women," she adds. erything on our plate. No exceptions." After all, she said, Harrison and Gavin impressed upon the students that people truly were starving in other places. After lunch, the children went outside, where they could sleep on mats or listen to a teacher read to them for 30 minutes. Stieff began attending the school when she Regular classes ended at 3 p.m. each day, she was 4. Then the preschool and kindergarten says, but lessons in extracurricular activities