Across decades, provinces, school was always home
BY MARGARET TILBERT Special to the VOICE
I’ve always liked school. It gave me a sense of security, a sense of belonging. When I was not yet school age, I longed to follow my sisters to school. I didn’t want to be alone, or was it that I wanted a ride with the dogs?
I had two younger sisters at that time and I had no playmates during the day. They were merely babies! My mom told me I cried to go to school, so when the time came, I was permitted to go and my sisters made room in the dog cart. What fun that was riding through the wooded lane up. It was a trip of at least three miles.
Our dogs were called Gip and Red and they drove us to school every day. Gip was a friendly Collie cross-breed and Red was appropriately called by his fiery red coat, being an Irish Setter. My father being very resourceful built us a cart, with wheels as tall if not taller than I was.
All three of us, sisters Frances and Dorothy and I, were pulled up through the woods on a dirt road to get to the next settlement where our English school, the Dunlop School was. When winters came, I remember we had a sled and again, our dedicated dogs were our friends. We were able to put them in the woodshed at school where they could keep warm before our return home.
We were the only English-speaking family in our community of about 100 families of French-speaking people in Beresford, NB. Since my dad didn’t speak French at all, it was just understandable we would be speaking English at home. My Mom had told me it was the “in” thing to do, to be able to speak both languages. Her sister had done the same thing, marrying an Englishman, because they had all the important jobs. But our father chose to be a farmer as he didn’t have the education that our uncle did. They lived in the city and we were country bumpkins, where people only spoke French in the area.
I’ve always had fond memories of the Dunlop school, our one-room schoolhouse. The open-concept idea of the 1970s, which our children and students experienced later, was not a new concept after all. But then, the difference is that they didn’t have just one teacher to teach eight grades.
After we arrived in the mornings, one of the older neighbour’s children had already lit the pot-bellied stove. One of them, Raymond Lindsay, who is still full of mischief, later recounted he frequently wanted to make such a good fire that the whole school would be overheated. But usually it was quite comfortable and the learning went on very well, in spite of his antics.
We were very attentive and respectful, and our teacher kept our attention as we were very eager to learn. Although the temperature wasn’t always constant, we didn’t mind as we were accustomed to wood-burning stoves in our homes.
We had one teacher, Miss Pentland, and she was kind and considerate. She had to be well organized as well, as she taught all grades from one to eight. Mind you, we were taught the very basics, not the high numbers of subjects that we have now. I guess that’s when we were taught the Three Rs—Reading, ‘Riting and ‘Rithmatic.
My sister Frances was one of the oldest in Grade 8, sister Dorothy in Grade 4, and I was one of the youngest just beginning Grade 1.
The class consisted of about 20 or more students. We were all seated at long desks, probably made by a local carpenter and each desk could seat four or more. This facilitated working together where the older pupils could help the younger ones.
We all worked well together and at Christmas time, the whole class put on a pageant, the reenactment of the Christmas story as we know it from the Bible. We had a manger, and with Mary and Joseph, the Child was my youngest sister who was still a baby with reddish curly hair. It fitted the scene quite well. The whole pageant ended with everyone singing,“Away in the Manger.” That song as a child has so touched me probably because music wasn’t part of our lives and it was something beautiful to hear. My parents worked very hard on the farm from morning till night and there was no time for frivolities. We had no radios at home. They weren’t even in homes yet. Now, my heart aches and my eyes well up when that song is sung or heard. I love singing it more because it brings me back home and to my childhood.
By Christmas time, I was doing the same work as the second graders. With this one-room schoolhouse, it was easy to listen to what the other grades were doing. We always strived to do more or better and I was proud to say I could. My parents never had the chance to go to school past third grade, and they wanted most that their children had better opportunities. I’m sure they were very happy and their expressions showed it when we would show them what we had accomplished.
The school year went on as such, always with our companions, our friends who knew the way back and forth from our home to our home away in the woods. Gip and Red would roam the school yard and surroundings, always waiting to take us home in the evenings.
They were our very faithful companions. When winter came and it was impossible for us to tread in the snow with cart wheels, our dogs were sometimes replaced by horses, or if the road was clear, our faithful friends pulled us by sled.
Although World War II was coming to an end, living or having enough to live on must have been a challenge for my dear parents, who showed no sign of want. I never saw any struggle or arguments in the house.
Going through all my files on my family history, I found a booklet on coupons that the government gave during the war. The families were rationed on sugar, meats, etc. It must have been stressful for some when they didn’t have farms. We were lucky as on our farm, we had everything, from vegetables to meats.
Later in life, I have fond memories of Mom and Dad helping others continually with the produce or meats that we had. They were always very generous with our neighbours. Our straw came in quite handy when our neighbour, the Landrys with a family of 14, needed it to make mattresses. The father of the family was unemployed most of the time.
Winters are cold in the North of New Brunswick. Sometimes we had cold, blustering winds and snow, with snow drifts as high as the house. We were able to make rooms in these snowdrifts. My younger sisters made a fire in it and burned the toboggan which was at the top of the air hole.
My mother made sure that we were well bundled-up against the cold for the trek to school. Mother was the first one up to light the fire in the stove so that we would be warm when we got up. After a hearty breakfast of good Quaker oatmeal porridge ladened with brown sugar and milk from our own cows, hot bricks from the oven warmed our feet in the sled on our way to school.
My first school year ended with everyone going his separate way, helping on the farms as much as they could. We no longer used the dogs or horses for that purpose. Dad used the horses for farm work where they were needed the most.
We never went to Dunlop after that, I never sang Away in the Manger for decades as all things familiar were replaced by new faces, new songs, new games in a new language.
Our pot-bellied stove, which in wintertime was the social focal point where we gathered around to warm up, was gone and replaced by something more modern in a huge school in our local community.
I went on to teach French for many years. In the end, I believe learning new languages gives people wings to travel the world.
Fonthill resident Margaret Tilbert taught at virtually every Catholic school in Welland up to 1980, when she moved to St. Alexander’s School in Fonthill, where she taught until retiring in 1997.
