The following are excerpts from Upper North Thompson Reflections, with pieces written by Lois Moss (with the help of a friend or two) and Ina T. Fairbrother.
Mr. A.E.Hyman opened the door of his brand new schoolhouse in Little Fort and met his class for the first time. This seemingly mundane event, which occurred in 1908, marked the beginning of formal education in the Upper North Thompson valley. Hyman’s class of 17 students were the only children in the entire region attending school at the time. With the coming of the railway and increased settlement, other one-room schools were built and the growth of enrollment until 1939 was steady but far from spectacular, reaching a total of 204.
At the other end of the area with which we are dealing, the building of the first school in Blue River took place in 1917. J.A. McCague writes, “With the arrival of more families, the need for a school became apparent. A group met and petitioned the Department of Education to provide facilities. The government gave $900 to buy materials and, with much volunteer help, a one-room 20’ by 30’ school was built. My father (Wm. McCague) was the first secretary of the school board, and the teacher, Miss Bertram, lived with us. The school board supplied fuel to heat the building. The school house became the centre of activity. It was used for church services, Sunday school, parties and dances. In 1919, we had a new teacher, Miss Raymond, from Victoria. The next year, Miss Jennie McGill, from Kamloops, arrived. She stayed for the next three years.”
The stereotypical “little red schoolhouse” did not apply to the Upper North Thompson. None of them were painted red, and some, as the Birch Island school and the second Vavenby school, were quite large, as settlers wanted to combine the functions of education and a community social centre.
An early Inspector of Schools, A.F. Matthews, deplored the practice of building large schools, mainly because of the difficulty of heating them. However, Alfred Graffunder, who attended the school of Vavenby, recalls that all of the firewood was provided uncomplainingly by the settlers, and carried into the school by Alfred and other students.
Some of the schools were built of logs; for example, the McMurphy school, which is now standing on the property of Roy and Joan Unterschultz at Vavenby, and the Signal Butte schoolhouse on Candle Creek Road, which became part of the home of Bert and Edith Heywood…
The first school in Blackpool was a log building, built in 1915. Margaret (Peggy) Tait was the first school teacher. Many will remember her. The School District went from Round Top to Clearwater. This school was closed in 1949 and a new school opened the following fall. It also closed when a school bus started taking children to Clearwater Elementary on Sept. 3, 1963. The original school burned down in May, 1969…
With the exception of Blue River, in the ’30s and ’40s, students wishing to progress beyond Grade 8 had to make a choice: study at home, take correspondence courses or board away from their home. Many of the valley’s students continued their education in Kamloops; some went to the coast where they stayed with relatives; several went to Olds School of Agriculture in Alberta. Sometimes the whole family would move to a larger centre when their children finished Grade 8. Many students did not continue or even complete elementary school…
Secondary school education was offered in Clearwater in 1949-50, in a small building on the “flats.” One teacher taught Grades 7-10. Blue River remained a superior school, continuing with three divisions for Grades 1-10.
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