SCHOOL DAYS
My memory is deeply imprinted with images of the Town Line School House
which used to be located at the intersection of Homestead Road and Highway 515.
It was a one room school-house where we were introduced to the opportunities of
education. We trudged the three
miles, or so, to school every morning carrying our sandwiches, often walking
backwards to keep from freezing our faces if the wind was in front of us.
There was a pail of water and a communal dipper on a stand at the back
left hand side of the classroom, and a white enamel washbasin and a roller towel
which was none too clean. There was
a box wood stove in the middle of the classroom near the back with stove pipes
running to the chimney at the front centre of the room.
One could get these stove pipes red hot by feeding the stove with dry
wood before the teacher got there in the mornings.
Once I got them red all the way to the chimney.
Several windows filled the left side of the classroom and, on the right
side near the front, there was one window, only.
Blackboards were situated on the rest of the right hand wall as well as
all across the front wall. The
clock was located above the front black board on the left hand side with a
picture of the Queen on the right hand side ‑ King George the first few
years. The lavatory was an outdoor building fifty yards behind the
school. One was on the right side
of the yard for the boys and one on the left side for the girls.
The baseball diamond was located on the left hand side of the school yard
just behind the school and the side of the woodshed was used as a back stop.
Babe Ruth never showed up but he was thought of when the ball was hit
into the bush across the town line road.
My first day to School was in
September, 1949. I was driven by my
oldest brother on the cross bar of his bike.
I was also driven on horse back by my other brothers a lot that first
year. After the first year I walked
until I got a hand ‑me‑down bike.
Mary Walsh was my first teacher.
She had a full deck because she had 15 students, two of whom were grade
9'ers, in this one room schoolhouse. There
was the Jessup family; Ruby, Doreen, Denis and Vera; the Madigans; Don, Denis,
Vincent, Huene and Bryan; Pilgrims;
Norman, Karl and Wilfred; and, the Sullivans ; Bernie, Carmel and Veronica.
Before and after school we had our farm chores to do; cleaning out
stables, milking, feeding the animals and changing their bedding.
In the morning you would need to get up around 6 A.M.
This was okay though, because you would wake up to the wonderful aroma of
James P's cooking swirling up the stairs from the big black wood stove.
It seemed to envelop every corner of the house.
One morning I can recall the frying of bologna on top of the stove, fresh
coffee brewing and hot porridge bubbling on the back lid.
Imagine! Fried bologna on toasted homemade bread, porridge with fresh
cream and brown sugar. What would
your Doctor say? I can still
conjure up these images and scents. An
hour’s work out at your chores and an hour’s walk to school sure used up all
those calories and carbohydrates.
In the late 1960's after the school had been closed for a few years, Freddy jacked it up and moved it down to his farm for a storage shed so as to make room for the newly reconstructed Highway 515 to pass across the property.