Before she could read or write, Frances Brock Starms (1915-2012) knew the power of a good story.

Raised to love words in Depression-era Alabama and California, Starms was only a teenager but already an award-winning storyteller when she delivered a life-changing performance. A woman in the audience was so impressed by Starms that she offered, that day, to fund her education. The benefactress, Mrs. Merrifield, asked for two things in return: “I want you to help others who want to teach, and always help children.”

Starms delivered. A gifted scholar at Atlanta University Laboratory High School and Spelman College, Starms then earned a master’s degree in early childhood education at Atlanta University.

By 1950, Frances Brock Starms was an experienced kindergarten teacher living and working in Milwaukee alongside her husband, Robert W. Starms. A brief stint as a supervisor for student teachers at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee fulfilled the first half of her promise to Mrs. Merrifield. But the classroom was calling her, and Starms returned to elementary teaching a few years later.

In 1969, Frances Brock Starms became the first director of the MPS Head Start program. She truly believed in Head Start’s mission to supply underserved families with a broad network of programs to give their children the best start in life.

Dedicated to their shared profession, Frances and Robert impacted generations of Milwaukee youth. Their educational programs imagined a world in which income level, zip code, and family structure posed no limitation to a child’s dignity, ability, or achievements in the classroom and in the community.

Even after she retired, Starms advocated tirelessly for children and families, for equity in education and employment, for the power of a kind or creative word to change lives. Because of that, she is one of just three people to have an MPS school — a trio of them, in her case — named for her during her lifetime.

When she passed in 2012, Starms’ former staff, students, and their families shared dozens of memories, including those of a song that once rang out in the halls of Starms Early Childhood Center and Starms Discovery Learning Center: “Frances Starms is a wonderful woman.”