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Show Page 23 Chapter 5 Schooling and Shenanigans Like her parents, Ann Bassett received an excellent education, although she had to leave her valley to acquire most of it. The first school, a dug-out, was built in Brown's Park in 1879. This was followed a few years later by a log school-house. Ann likely attended the school whenever it was open, which was not very regularly. Fortunately she was bright, and what little formal education she acquired as a young girl was compensated for by her love for reading, which, in turn, was nourished by the excellent library the Bassett home possessed. Much of Ann's reading consisted of poetry, her tastes ranging from William Cullen Bryant's Thanatopsis, a poem about death, to Robert W. Service's Spell of the Yukon. Her love of nature, coupled with this love of poetry, eventually led her to write such verses as: Harps of the Gods are tall trees in the mountains, Swayed by the rhythm of music divine, |