Fanny Finch Elementary School

Fanny Shipe's road to McKinney was paid for by work. A family biography by Ruth Finch Nelson on the Collin County History site says she came to Cleburne in a covered wagon at five, lost her mother at eight and her father at fourteen, and earned the money for her own college education. She taught in Cleburne, then at McKinney's Collegiate Institute. On April 29, 1890, she married Henry A. Finch at the Methodist church in McKinney, which the Chautauqua Circle, the county's first literary organization, decorated for the wedding. The couple had seven children.

What the plaque says

Fanny Finch Elementary School Laura Frances (Fanny) Shipe (1866-1942) was born in Woodstock, Va., and educated in Texas. In 1890, after teaching at McKinney's Collegiate Institute, she married Henry A. Finch (d. 1934), later a Texas legislator and mayor of the city. The couple had 7 children. In 1917 Mrs. Finch became one of the state's first women to serve on a school board. A born leader, she helped found such enterprises as the Owl Literary Club and the city's first Garden Club. She and her husband gave sites for a park and a college. This school was named in her honor in 1924. (1978)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Heard Natural Science Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary — 1.9 mi
  A 289-acre sanctuary in McKinney that Bessie Heard founded at the age of 80, with five habitats, a 50-acre wetland and 6.5 miles of trails.
• Rockwall County Historical Foundation & Museum — 20 mi
  A small museum in Harry Myers Park that keeps the evidence on Rockwall's rock wall, sandstone dikes that geologists call natural and folk tales call built.

More markers nearby

• Bradley Cemetery — 0.4 mi
• Governor James Webb Throckmorton — 0.5 mi
• Pecan Grove Memorial Park — 0.5 mi
• The Birthplace of Rebekah Baines Johnson — 0.5 mi