It was wonderful to reconnect with old friends, Bill and Nelda Pickard when I made a presentation at Oakpark Retirement Community on July 19th. 

Several residents had gone to one-room schools.  There were also two former teachers in attendance.  Anne M. Squire began teaching at S.S. No. 2 Malden in 1939, the day after World War II broke out.

I also met Velda Mason who attended a one-room schoolhouse in Popes Harbour, Nova Scotia in 1932, and later attended Business College in Halifax.  She remembers have all grades from primary to grade 11 with one teacher in the one-room schoolhouse!

Olive Hansen (Cleveland) said it was difficult finding teachers for Western Shore School in Nova Scotia.  Students went home for lunch and the high school (grades 7-10) was upstairs.  She told me she got the strap for being saucy.  One of her teachers used to hit her students on the head with the bell if they were talking while coming into the school after the lunch break.

Ralph W. Smith went to the town school in Stettler, Alberta.  The elementary and high school were all in one building with three floors.  When the School Board couldn’t find people to make outhouses for the rural one-room schools, they hired a carpenter to build them at the back of the School Board’s office building.  Ralph drove a 1938 Ford truck.  In the 1940s, he was hired to pull the outhouses on a sleigh attached to the truck and deliver them to the rural schools, sometimes 50 miles away.  The roofs of the outhouses were red shingles so that other cars could see him coming.

I recently obtained a copy of your book, and find it an informative and entertaining read. 

I note that on page 69 there is a 1908 class photo of a Vernon School class, courtesy of Peggy Carss and Chris MacPhail.  I note that one of the students is a 14 year old Pearl Acres, my grandmother.  Also in the photo is her younger brother Gilbert Acres.

The photo in the book is too small to make out her features, and I was wondering if it would be possible to contact the owners of the photo, or to have them contact me to see if I could get a copy of the photo to share with all of my cousins. 

Similarly, the  1938 photo, on page 70 has my aunt, Thelma McDonald, in it.

Any assistance in obtaining copies of these two photos would be greatly appreciated.  (I was happy to provide him with both these photos.)

I can be contacted at this e-mail moedelorme@yahoo.com, or phone number of 613-836-9014, or home address of 5 Oakfern Cr. Stittsville, K2S 1E5.

You may or not know, that the Acres family came from South March, and Pearl's mother was a Richardson.  I found it interesting that your book mentions that the school house built in South March was built with stone from the Richardson quarry.  I was not aware that the there was a Richardson quarry, and will be looking into this as part of my family research.

One further question, Pearl's father-in-law was an Alexander Kennedy was a school teacher in the 1800s and is believed to have taught in Carleton County.  He is an elusive character who seems to have disappeared.  He was possibly married twice, the first time to a Christy Jane McArthur.  Have you run across him in your research, or would you have any suggestions as to where I could find out more information on him?

Thank you for any assistance that you may be able to provide me.

Morris and Sharon Delorme

Bill Mitchell is looking for information and pictures about two schools he attended around 1952.  One school was at Evelyn near Thamesford ON and the other at Orwell justwest of Aylmer ON.  Please contact him at bluebird4460@hotmail.com if you have any information.