Jemima “Mime” Westcott - 1911-2022

A life dedicated to teaching, family, and the love of living life to the fullest.

Written by Ron and Rae Westcott

Mime Westcott (nee Casselman) was born in Lauder MB on January 10, 1911. Despite the challenges of raising 11 children on their small family farm, Mime’s parents made sure education was a priority for all their children. Mime attended Lauder School up to grade 11 and needed to leave home to finish her grade 12 at Souris. In her last semester, she worked after school at her boarding house to pay her room and board. In 1928/29, Mime, along with her older sister, attended the Winnipeg Normal School to receive her Teacher Certificate. Unfortunately, despite sending out over 100 job enquiries, there were very few jobs in Manitoba during the depression years for young female teachers and Mime was forced to return to Lauder to work on the family farm and for local homesteaders, as a housekeeper/nanny. Despite this setback, Mime didn’t give up her dream to be a teacher and in the spring of 1931 a family friend, who had a cousin on the board of Derry School, a oneroom school near Brandon, confirmed a job interview and she became the K-9 teacher for the 1931-1932 school year. With a monthly salary of less than $30.00 and expenses related to her room and board, payments to the newly formed Manitoba Teachers Federation and an obligation to send money home each month to keep the family farm going, Mime had very little funds left to put into her bank account. Although, she still had five cents left over to buy a delicious ice cream cone at the Madder Store in Douglas, the closest town to Derry School.

Above: Mime at the Norman School cairn at age 102.

Right: Mime attending Normal School in Winnipeg in 1929.

Left: Mime on her 110th birthday with flowers from RTAM.

Mime’s dream job was short lived, as a local female teacher needed a teaching position and the Derry School Board was forced to hire this local teacher. Since she loved the area and was dating Reg Westcott, a handsome young man from Douglas, who was working at the farm where Mime boarded, she was fortunate to acquire the teaching job at Norman School, 9 miles north of Douglas. Mime taught at this one-room school until her marriage to Reg in 1936. At that time, married female teachers were not allowed to teach. So, from 1936 to 1954, Mime helped Reg run the family farm near Douglas and raised 5 children.

In 1954 when teachers were in demand in these post-war years, and when Mime’s youngest of 5 was in school, she was persuaded to go back to Derry to again teach in this one room school. With the construction of a new 4-room school in Douglas in 1954 and with the closure of Derry School, Mime accepted the K-3 position in Douglas, under the principalship of Ab Richardson. In 1960, since Mime didn’t yet have her Permanent Professional Teaching Certificate, she substituted and began working towards this classification through night classes and summer school at Brandon University, until she achieved permanent teacher status in 1966 and joined the teaching staff at Princess Elizabeth School in Shilo. Since Reg, Mime and family moved to Brandon in 1962, Mime commuted to Shilo with colleagues Don Berry, Clair Davies, Dick McDonald and Walter and Sylvia Bohonos. The first thing they looked for each day was to see if Mime had on matching shoes. Frequently she didn’t and they weren’t even the same colour! Besides her teaching duties, she curled with the Shilo staff and was a member of Team Nahachewsky that won the provincial MTS Bonspiel in 1972.