Memories

MEMORIES Written by Olive G. Zeemel, submitted by Karen Boughton

In September, 1935, I enrolled in the Winnipeg Normal School at William Avenue and Gertie Street.

I had grade 12 in the hopes of earning a First Class Certificate, but was told my marks were not high enough, so I went into the Second Class training. There were three rooms of classes that year with approximately 100 teachers in training.

The cost was $100 for the year or (for most of us) $10.00 a month. Several students were asked to leave during the year as the $10.00 could not be raised (so much for the depression).

Before graduation, I am sure that all of those who were were becoming trained teachers applied to all 53 schools advertising for teachers for the following year. There would have been applicants from the Brandon Normal School and many who had not been successful in getting a school from the classes of 1935.

Not being hired, I had my name put on the list of available teachers for substituting in the City of Winnipeg and over the year got in several weeks of classroom work.

The following August, I was called for an interview with Mr. Tomlinson who was the Official Trustee for the school districts which had no local School Boards. He told me there was a teacher needed at Grand Rapids and I said I would take it.

He replied, “No, talk it over with your parents. You might just as well go to Headingley and have the gates closed behind you for the year, as go to Grand Rapids.”

One had to go up on the last trip on the S. S. Kenora in September and return on its first trip in July.

I called the next day and accepted the posting and was paid $2.25 per teaching day. Out of this, I was to pay $20.00 a month for my room and board.

So, on September 23, 1937, I boarded the S. S. Kenora for the trip north to Grand Rapids, stopping at all the small fishing villages on the way to let off or take on passengers and/or freight. The trip took two days and two nights.

I was met at the landing at Grand Rapids by my landlady to be, Florence Campbell, and her three daughters, Margaret, Dorothy and Audrey. Mrs. Campbell was the owner of the only store in Grand Rapids. The Post Office was in the store. Margaret, the eldest, looked after the store. Dorothy and Audrey were still in school. Francis, her son, was also in school.

Florence was a widow. She was the daughter of a Scot trader who had started the store. Her mother was a girl from the Reserve. Florence, in turn, married a Scot Trader so she and her three brothers, Valentine, Lawrence and Arthur, were considered the only white people in the town.

The mailman would leave on the first of every month to take mail to The Pas. He travelled by canoe in summer and dog team in the winter. He would return on or about the ninth of the month with the Grand Rapid’s mail.

The Mountie came twice during the year and I was to report any truancy to him as he was the Truant Officer. He was responsible to see that the children came to school and weren’t kept home to do bead work or work on making things to be sold the following summer when the S. S. Kenora would make weekly trips all summer with tourists.

I had 32 pupils in the school. All classes from one to eight and one Grade Nine, a correspondence pupil, whose work I monitored and marked to report monthly to the Official Trustee. It took a couple of weeks before I could get everyone straightened out as they were very shy and would hide their face and giggle when I asked their names.

It took getting used to, too, to having a squirrel or rabbit skinned at the table by Francis while we were having our meals.

Christmas mail arrived on December 9 and it was hard, but I never opened the parcels until Christmas Day.

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