Teaching in One-Room Country Schools: Idella Edwards (1897-1976) and Elinor Anderson (1926-2016) (52 Ancestors 2020 Week 37) Theme: "Back to School"

First Generation: Idella 

Education was of utmost importance to my Grandma. Next to "eat your greens!", her favourite precepts included "get an education!" and (perhaps only aimed at her equally serious granddaughter) "for the love of Mike, smile!" She had lots of other passions and great values to instill, but this week the focus is on school.

Idella ("Della") Edwards was born in Great Falls, Montana on 28 July 1897, the first-born child of Charles F. Edwards and Mary Jane ("Mayme") Wescott. Three sisters and two brothers would come along to complete the Edwards family.

From Grandma Della's Album - with her comment (the same thing she often said to me!)

When Della started school (September 1903) she could simply walk across the street to Longfellow School in Great Falls. However, when she was 12, the family moved to a small fruit farm near Lake Blaine, N.W. of Kalispell and about 30 miles from the western entrance to Glacier Park. Della and her siblings attended Cayuse Prairie School, 3 miles away.

From Grandma Della's Album

Because freight rates were so high, Della's father found he couldn't afford to ship his fruit, so returned to his previous career working on the railroad.  He had always worked for the Great Northern Railroad, but when they had a strike in 1914, he went to Canada to work on the CPR.  This introduced him to the Saskatchewan prairie where he saw a new opportunity. He took up a homestead (N18-20-21-W3M) seven miles south of Lancer, Saskatchewan.  That winter, Charles moved his family to a home in Kalispell until he could get a house built on the half section in Saskatchewan.

When Charles brought the family by train to Lancer in the spring of 1915, Della remained in Kalispell until the summer of 1916 so that she could finish high school. 

Flathead County High School, Kalispell, MT from Grandma Della's Album

From Grandma's High School Yearbook 1916

Charles and some of the other men applied to the Saskatchewan Department of Education for advice in setting up a local school district in the newly developing farming community. A variation on one of the proposed names was approved by the Department; Hill School would be located on the Northeast corner of SE17-20-21 W3M. My Uncle Bob Anderson wrote about these times in "A Partial History of Hill School (District #3624)": 

It was recorded that there were 13 school age children in the proposed district. Five of this group were members of the Edwards family (Everett 15, Marion 13, Ora 11, Grace 9, Merton 6). 

As was true of nearly all Prairie rural schools, a loan (debenture) was asked for and received, to finance construction. But in Hill's  case, approval came later than expected, so the target date of fall, 1915 could not be met. Since approval was not given until late 1915, construction of the 24'X30' school, an 8 horse barn and 2 outhouses was not completed until Nov., 1915. The fall term was held in the Ed Howey farm home, with teacher John Cairns at $70 per month. Hill School was officially opened on Apr. 3, 1916. The first school officials were chairman J. B. O'Connor, Sec.-Treas. Chas. Edwards and Trustees Bert White and A.E. Cavanagh.

The first teacher at the new school was Grace Leggott. She resigned at the end of the spring term because of illness, and the local Board was faced with the task of finding another teacher for the fall. There were more openings than teachers in those early years and qualified people were hard to find. At the local Board meeting, Sec.-Treas. Chas. Edwards mentioned that his oldest daughter Idella had just finished high school in Kalispell, Montana, and was planning to join the family on their homestead. Could she fill in as teacher until someone qualified could be found? The Trustees agreed with his suggestion, and Idella Edwards took charge of Hill School early that fall, just after her 19th birthday. With no teacher training and no background in Canadian or Saskatchewan schooling, she was somewhat apprehensive, and with good reason.

School Inspector G.D. Ralston arrived on the scene late that fall, discovered who was teaching there, and reported to the Dept.of Education.

 A copy of the letter sent to Miss Edwards from the Department of Education on 30 November 1916 indicated that, "although this is not altogether satisfactory it has been decided to allow you to remain in charge until December 31, 1916. Your provisional certificate is enclosed herewith. . . .  If you wish to continue teaching in this province it will be necessary for you to qualify in the usual way. If you will have forwarded to the Department an official statement to the effect that the Flathead County High School, from which institution you obtained your diploma, is an accredited High School, you will be entitled to admission to the Third Class Session of the Normal School."

From Grandma's Album - Central School, Swift Current, Saskatchewan
Location of her Normal School 1917

Della did as suggested and headed "back to school". She attended Normal School for a three month course in public school teaching in Swift Current, Saskatchewan in January, February and March of 1917.  The usual location for learning to be a teacher was the Normal School in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, but it was filled to capacity at this time with the First World War in full swing. Swift Current was certainly the more convenient location for her; Della's class may have been the only one to receive their teaching diplomas at this location.

From Grandma's Album - she is second from left

From Grandma's Album - she is second from right, back row

 

Until the end of the school term, she taught at Oroyo School near Beverly, Saskatchewan.  She then applied for and was accepted as teacher at Wayne Valley School District (SW3-22-20-W3M).  She began teaching there in the Fall of 1917, boarding with a local family by the name of Morice.  

Miss Della Edwards standing in doorway to her school:
Wayne Valley School

The location meant that she was fairly close to her family; the Charles Edwards' were farming south of Lancer. It also meant that she was in the immediate vicinity of the homestead of Ingvald Anderson, whom she met shortly and married on December 29, 1919.  Idella taught until the end of the term in June 1920.  At this time, she and Ingvald were living at his brother Clarence's homestead (23-21-20-W3M) four miles southeast of her school.  She mentioned driving by horse and buggy the four miles to school, leaning over the side with morning sickness, being pregnant with their first child.

In those days, this meant the end of her teaching career as she adapted to the challenging role of wife and, over the years, mother of six on a small prairie farm. 

She was called upon to go "back to school" from time to time to fill in when a local teacher was ill. The remuneration was not great - she was able to treat herself to the luxury of some beautiful handkerchiefs that she obviously treasured and handed down to her daughter Elinor who handed them down to her daughter Joanne. 

Next Generation: Elinor

My mother Elinor Georgina Anderson, Ingvald and Della's fourth child (born 11 March 1926 in Cabri, Saskatchewan) would grow up to follow in her mother's footsteps. Like her mother's, her teaching career was cut short when she chose to marry a local farmer in the district where she was teaching.  

Elinor's path to school was never a particularly easy one. She and her siblings did a lot of walking to school over the dry prairie, swinging the jam pails full of their lunches, but the stories they told of this time were ones of great enjoyment rather than hardship. 

Music at Ararat Springs School - Elinor 2nd from left; brother Jack third from right

School days for Elinor early 1940s at Ararat School - Elinor back row right

High school was not taught in her local one-room school. Elinor completed Grades 9 and 10 by completing correspondence classes at Ararat Springs. Grade 11 proved more problematic.  She worked for her room and board at the home of John and Anna Perry so she could attend high school in Lancer, returning home in April to finish the year there. She was no sooner home than a desperate neighbour, Alf Seip, needed help with his one year-old daughter when his wife was hospitalized with complications of her second pregnancy. Elinor took the job so that Mr. Seip could seed his crop.  In June her principal at the Lancer High School, Mr. Harvey Wallace, stepped in and invited her to stay with him and his wife so that she could catch up on her studies and write the final examinations for Grade 11.  Elinor kept the receipt for the examination fees, which it seems students were expected to pay. (Seven dollars was no doubt a lot of money to her at the time; I wonder if the Wallaces assisted her again or if she used her wages from the Seip job to pay this? For her to have kept this receipt for the rest of her life is indicative of its significance.)

Still determined to complete high school, Elinor put an ad in the Swift Current Sun, seeking room and board in exchange for housework. Bill Dawson, who worked for the Sun, snapped up the opportunity. He and his wife Dorothy had a new baby boy (whose twin brother had died) as well as a two year-old son and needed some help. Elinor had her new home for her Grade 12 year.  Elinor's recollection of her final year of high school:

Working for your room and board meant rising at dawn and making breakfast before school. Wash days were worse as that was also done before you left. After school there was supper, dishes and children to help with. At this time only a portion of Swift Current had running water so water was delivered when you needed it, which was often with a new baby in the house. The outdoor privy had chemical pails which were emptied weekly when the "honey wagon" came around. This all added to "time" - with the only dryer being an outside clothesline. Homework was usually done after 9:00 p.m. in the evening. 

Nevertheless, she graduated from the Swift Current Collegiate Institute in 1944. Her high school yearbook says of her:

ELINORE ANDERSON that smiling one

always has her homework done

But if she hasn't as a rule

She will get it done in school. 

 

 

Elinor Anderson Graduation - banquet and dance held Tuesday 2 May 1944

Like her mother, Elinor headed "back to school" to attend Normal School for teacher training. Like her mother, she was doing so during war years. 

Elinor borrowed the money from her older brother Bob to enable her to attend the Normal School in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan for the term commencing in September 1944. (She always said that she finally had Bob paid back just before her teaching career ended.) 

She made many friends there that year and one gets a sense it was a very special year in her life. (One of her fellow classmates was Alvina Olsen Kantrud who would become a neighbour and lifelong good friend. Alvina was also my first Sunday School teacher, as it turned out.) She has numerous photographs showing a very happy 18 year-old enjoying the freedom of attending classes and socializing without also having to work long hours to pay her room and board. 

Elinor (2nd from right) with Normal School friends Audrey Erjen, Zena Dutton, and Vi Bolley 1945

She was a member of Class "Q".  The class photo has a notable shortage of young men, no doubt a sign of the times.

Elinor's Class at Moose Jaw Normal School 16 February 1945

Their graduation ceremony was held on 14 June 1945 and then it was time to find a teaching position. Fortunately for her descendants, she landed at Jorgenson School in the Leinan/Stewart Valley area north of Swift Current, Saskatchewan. She boarded across the road with the (unrelated) Anderson family, one of whom provided me with the following photograph of Elinor as a young teacher there.

Miss Elinor Anderson, teacher, June 1946

Elinor's students at Jorgenson School May 1946
(apparently they were about to play ball - something she would likely have encouraged)

Elinor enjoyed teaching. She had many stories she liked to tell from those days; I believe her students sometimes pulled the wool over her eyes (by manipulating the clock so that recess was never-ending, for example), but my mother was no fool and soon caught on to their antics. Then, like her mother, she fell in love with a local young farmer. She married my Dad Ken Bardahl in December of 1947, ending her  2 1/2 year teaching career. Dad had also attended Jorgenson School for a part of his education.

Ken Bardahl as a student at Jorgenson School c.1940-41, in the white shirt, middle front row

In a strange twist of fate, my mother would go "back to school" one more time. In 1959 we moved from the Bardahl homestead to the old Jorgenson School where my mother had taught more than a decade earlier. Because it was abandoned, my Dad was able to buy it and its two acre property very reasonably and convert it into a comfortable home. I never heard my mother say how she felt about this move "back to school" but it must have elicited an abundance of memories for her. 

Jorgenson School under renovation 1959

Some Resources:

• Anderson, Robert W., "A Partial History of Hill School (District #3624)", Handwritten original copy in possession of the author, undated but probably about 1989
• Anderson, Robert W., "Normal School at Central in early years as city", The Southwest Booster, Swift Current, Saskatchewan, May 29, 1989, section 1, page 13
• Bardahl, Elinor, personal memories included in Roots and Branches: The Ingwald Anderson and Idella Edwards Family Tree by Robert W. Anderson and Joanne L. Barnard, Chokecherry Press 2000, page 66