Time spent going to school in a horse-drawn school van in the 1950s produced good memories but also some bumpy ones
In the 1950s, a teenage cousin from Michigan came to visit us in Manitoba. Seeing her first horse-drawn school van, she came running with the news: “The gypsies are in town!”
Back then, the term was not considered a racial slur. In fact, my cousin admired these itinerant folks who travelled about and enjoyed a fancy-free lifestyle. It was understandable that she mistook a school van for one of their covered wagons.
Pulled by a team of horses, these vans conveyed students to the four-room school in the village. Children in some farm families might have to travel up to seven miles one way over rural roads in all kinds of weather.
Read Also
Stock dogs show off herding skills at Ag in Motion
Stock dogs draw a crowd at Ag in Motion. Border collies and other herding breeds are well known for the work they do on the farm.
A rainy spring or fall saw the team of horses slog down muddy lanes. The main roads were not yet graveled, which slowed progress considerably. As the van slowly rumbled along with its load of noisy scholars, the big boys in high school solicited assistance of the van driver for help with their assignments. We younger kids swapped stories (real and imaginary) to amuse each other.
Shortly after the first snowfall, the wheels on the van were replaced by sleigh runners, requiring a change from the regular route to a bush trail where snow was deeper.
I remember the horses’ noses covered in hoar frost like white whiskers. The van was equipped with a small stove and the chimney stuck out the top. Wood was stored under the benches.
It was fun winding between the trees on the trail — until it wasn’t.
Fluctuating temperatures tended to create “rotten” snow on one side of the trail in spring, and the van would suddenly upset. Jumping through the front opening, the driver would calm the horses and untangle their harnesses.
Smaller kids jumped out the back door to safety, wide-eyed and shivering. The big boys did their best to put the van upright and douse the stove with snow to smother any flames.
When we achieved some semblance of order and retrieved our battered lunch kits, we were on our way again. The worst part was arriving at school with rumpled scribblers, torn homework and twigs in our hair.
The city-bred teacher eyed us skeptically when we told her the reason. Had we not had other students to back our story, she would no doubt have kept us in at recess as punishment for being late.
At noon hour we opened our lunch kits (usually Rogers syrup pails) to find a jumble of sandwiches. If we were lucky enough to have a real tin lunch kit with a thermos, the cork may have popped out and the salmon sandwiches would be swimming in lukewarm cocoa.
At four o’clock we piled back into the van for what we hoped would be an uneventful ride home, although three days out of five, that was never guaranteed.
Archie the horse was a long-legged critter who was terrified of trains. When the whistle blew four miles distant, he’d perk up his ears and start prancing. It was all his teammate (a slothful old mare) and the van driver could do to keep him from bolting down the road.
We got home a lot sooner on train days, thanks to Archie, but it was certainly not a leisurely ride.
