Wee Chee Chee

Mary Ford taught school in a one room school house in the 40’s and 50’s. She strived to find creative literary methods to teach phonics and vocabulary. Mary’s love of animals gave her an idea of a playful squirrel named Wee Chee Chee. She used her story of Wee Chee Chee to inspirer her students to read and write.

Great Aunt Mary was a teacher in a one room school house in Fairbury, Nebraska south of Lincoln, Nebraska. As a teacher in the 40's and 50's she was always striving to find or create literature using the phonics and vocabulary along with inspiring and captivating illustrations for her students to learn to read and write. Wee Chee Chee came from her love of animals, her sense of play and her desire to give as much as she could to her students. Mary did have one great fear and that was a fear a Copyright would not protect her dear Wee Chee Chee from theft of her work. As a result Mary never did follow through with getting her book published when she was alive even though the entire family encouraged her to publish. The manuscript, on plain lined paper, was shoved in a drawer, put in the garage covered in tossed out items and trash until it was taken to be stored by the family after her death. Our Father Chuck Gilmore illustrated the book. The story of Wee Chee Chee would have been lost forever if it wasn't for a joint effort of the Gilmore family. Our first cousin Rich Gilmore found and stored the original story after Mary Ford's death. Marsha (Gilmore) Henry, Corrie (Gilmore) Karnan and Doug Gilmore the children of Chuck Gilmore remembered the story of Wee Chee Chee from childhood. We recall the times our father Chuck Gilmore illustrated the story and Great Aunt Mary read her story to us in the 1960's. Rachel (Gilmore) Annett, the daughter of Doug Gilmore computerized and restored the pictures used in the story.