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1968 – present
Founded: 1968, in direct response to the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Three Fort Wayne women — Dottie Fitchey, Dorothy Holt and Mary Hoban — founded the school to give low-income preschool children a Montessori education. It began with 18 children in a single classroom donated by St. Mary's Catholic Church. The old St. Mary's parish school building at Lafayette and Jefferson (built 1902–03) had closed as a parish school in 1963, reopened in 1964 as an experimental inner-city school, and in 1968 became Fort Wayne's first Montessori preschool; the Allen County genealogical record dates the building's razing to 1969, while the school's own history says it remained at its St. Mary's location for many years — the two accounts are carried as they stand.
Course: In October 2003 the Lincoln Foundation donated the Great Beginning Daycare building on Lewis Street and the school moved there; when that site was sold for the Parkview Field development, the school moved in August 2007 to leased classrooms at Village Elementary School, and in August 2009 to its permanent home at 6001 S. Anthony Blvd. It added its first kindergarten class in August 2018 and later a toddler program for ages one and two.
Fate: Operating, with capacity for about 100 children; by its own count it has graduated more than 5,000 students since 1968.
Sources:
- Martin Luther King Montessori School, "Who we are" (mlkdreamschool.org).
- Input Fort Wayne, "Investing in 'hidden treasure'" (Feb. 28, 2018).
- Allen County Genealogical Society of Indiana (ACGSI), Lincoln Tower page — St. Mary's School building, 1902–03 to 1969.