Silver Stream was where my memory kicks in again, and probably some of my most memorable school days were spent there. By this time we had moved to a lovely farm only a mile and a half from the school known as the Jack Stewart place, and most days I walked it both ways.
Silver Stream like Golden Stream before it, was a one room school. When I say one room, I mean one classroom. There was also a furnace room, a cloak room, and a small kitchen. But for the most part it was eight grades in one fairly large classroom and as it worked out it was one grade per row. Grade ones to the right and going up by grades to grade eight on the left.
The teacher’s name was Miss Enns. I don’t recall ever hearing what her first name was. She boarded with a local family, who also drove her to and from the school house, unless the weather was fine enough for her to walk. There was a rather large school yard surrounded by trees and bounded on the east side by…. you guessed it….Silver Stream, which was off limits except when accompanied by Miss Enns on the occasional nature study walk. I had a particular fondness for climbing trees which caused me some embarrassment one day when I fell out of one tearing the seat out of my pants. I slunk back to the school expecting punishment but Miss Enns very calmly told me to go in the bathroom, take off my pants and hand them out to her. In no time she had sewed them back up and passed them back and I was able to return to the playground with my dignity restored.
To one side of the school yard was a small barn where at one time students who rode horseback to school could stable their horses while attending classes. I don’t remember any horses ever being in it while I was there. We often used the barn for various play purposes, by turns a fort, a hide out, or a shelter from the rain. It was also used for many games of Ante Over or as we called it Annie-I-Over. Many a forts were built among the trees around the playground and depending on the season many games of Pom Pom Pullaway. tag, and prisoners base were played on the field. Of course no schoolyard would be complete without a baseball diamond and that also got a lot of use for softball games and the ever popular batting out flies. There was a set of swings of course which proved to be quite dangerous for some of us.
Miss Enns used a hectograph or gelatin duplicator to make copies of coloring pages and such for the lower grades. It consisted of a tray with a sort of gel in it and she used aniline ink to trace the design on a master copy. I remember it as being quite smelly but not unpleasant. The master would be placed face down on the gel for a prescribed length of time then removed and several copies could be made by pressing a fresh sheet of paper down on the gel which would transfer the ink design to the paper.
For the higher grades she had a Gestetner machine or mimeograph to reproduce things like tests, exams and study sheets . A master copy could be made by typing on a special wax coated sheet or cutting it with a stencil cutter. The master would then be fastened to the ink soaked drum of the Gestetner. Fresh paper would be loaded in the machine then the drum was turned with a crank with clackety clack sound. I think that’s where the term “cranking out copies” originated . There were always plenty of volunteers to turn the crank and witness the magic.
There was a flagpole out front of the school and every morning the student whose job it was that week would proudly carry the flag out and run it up the pole. The same student would take it down at the end of the day. In those days the flag was the Canadian Red Ensign with the shield of Canada’s 1921 coat of arms on it. In 1957, this was updated to feature red maple leaves instead of green, a version that remained in use until 1965. Sometimes the Union Jack would be flown for patriotic or Commonwealth-related occasions.
Students vied for other chores for Mis Enns as well. The blackboards required cleaning at the end of every day and on Fridays they were washed. Every day the blackboard erasers were taken outside and slapped together to knock the chalk dust out of them. Someone would have the job of straightening the book shelves under the windows on one side of the room and the glass front bookcase on the other side. Floors needed scrubbing regularly and the small kitchen cleaned and straightened up. There was no janitor, students filled that role.
So far, except for a pair of torn pants I’ve painted a rather pleasant picture of daily school life. That will all change in the next episode as I discuss some of the many problems that arose from time to time. Have a great week.
