Old schools and memories
A column about old schools led readers to share their ideas.
Elaine Sloan, from Windsor, Ont., researched her school (Glengariff School District No. 1987) near Kelvington, Sask., and wrote a book about it. It was published in 1997 after a five-year labor of love.
Proceeds from the book and donations provided new paint, a new roof and desks inside the school. A picnic was held there last summer, and another one is planned this July.
“My great-grandfather William Brooks was one of three settlers in the Nut Mountain, Sask., area to form the school district and get the school built. Both of my parents as well as my sister, two brothers and myself attended this school,” wrote Sloan, on stationery that bears a sketch of the school.
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The card’s back says “building supplies for … the school were hauled by horses and oxen from the railway town, a distance of 16 miles.”
Ellen Frohlick from Penzance, Sask., also honors her school. The Schell School in Holdfast, Sask., has a wall paying tribute to other school districts that amalgamated to form Schell.
According to a newspaper article, a committee helped raise funds for the wall that includes “a photo of each of the old school buildings and a large map of the area to show where each of the schools was located.”
Book-shaped plaques were put on the wall, and donors paid $10 to engrave their names and the names of their schools.
Frohlick said they have also “put up a cabinet filled with old roll call books, a strap, a bell, pictures of kids (and) of jam cans, etc. … We fill a gap that museums can’t because the plaques purchased have particulars on them such as a bell to depict a former teacher or member of the school board.”
