![]() |
my alma mater, S.S.#3, built 1875 |

One of the best things about volunteering at Glanmore for this curious cat is learning. Annual volunteer development days, an impressive resource library, coaching by professional staff to take on new roles. A delightful part of being a Friend of Glanmore is the monthly meeting: business (short,) coffee break (great fellowship,) and guest speaker (fascinating.)
This week our guest was sociologist and writer Millie Morton, who has written a tribute to her mother: a country kid, farm-wife and one-room school teacher story. Lovely. The book is called Grace. The subtitle, A teacher's life, one-room schools, and a century of change in Ontario, promises (and delivers) a thoughtful nostalgic and philosophical journey through the very territory I travelled as a child, albeit a couple of decades later. I am wandering through it, and memory. I attended a one-room school from 1952 to 1960. Same one room, same teacher, pretty much the same kids but for the occasional addition of "the beginners" in September.

She deserves a book, I would suggest. Not a perfect teacher for kids who struggled. A chooser of favourites. Shy, obedient and diligent little me was her favourite kind of 'pupil.'


All those memories pouring back. What strikes me about the hard life of Millie's mother Grace, and of Miss Eaton at S.S.#3 North Marysburgh was that they were rocks. Expected to be community models, judged by how well they produced a Christmas concert or gave the strap or by the memory-work their pupils could produce, hired and fired by uneducated school board members. They often married local farmers - and in the day, that ended their careers - and continued to be cornerstones in rural society.
But I do go on. Read Grace. It's an astounding book. And like me, you may have one-room school experience, as pupil or teacher, and the book will touch your heart.
No comments:
Post a Comment