Historic Sites of Manitoba: Austin School No. 154 (Austin, Municipality of North Norfolk)

Link to:
Principals | Vice-Principals | Teachers | Photos & Coordinates | Sources

The Austin School District was established formally in May 1884 and it began operation the next year. A school building was located about one and a half miles southeast of Austin, in the Rural Municipality of North Norfolk. In 1891, a one-room schoolhouse was built in town. It was replaced in 1905 by a two-storey, two-classroom brick building, built on a design by Brandon architect William Nicholson Lailey.

The school had expanded to three classrooms by 1923 and another room was added in 1931. The school expanded again in the 1950s with another classroom, with a teaching staff of eight. It became a consolidated school when, in 1965, it merged with rural schools from the surrounding vicinity: Forestville School No. 656, Norfolk School No. 897, Orangeville School No. 1011, Ravenshoe School No. 1261, and Springbrook School No. 566. The consolidated school became part of the Pine Creek School Division in 1968.

The old brick school was closed in June 1974, having accommodated students in kindergarten to grade 6 for the last six years of its operation. The building was demolished later that year. During demolition, the building caught fire and burned. A monument, constructed by John Seaman (whose wife Marjorie had taught at the school), was erected on the former school site around 1980. It was replaced by a plaque affixed to a boulder in 2015.

Principals

Period	Principal
1893	?
1894-1898	W. A. Ross
1898-1899	William Thomas Daniel Lathwell (1876-1932)
1899-1900	Neil Livingstone
1900-1901	Francis Henry “Frank” Belton (1869-1936)
1902-1904	?
1905	Albert E. Smith
1906	Chester C. McClellan
1906-1910	Henry Johnston “Harry” Everall (1877-1933)
1910-1920	?
1921-1923	Jean M. Avery
1923-1924	James Thomas Hulme (1864-1938)
1924-1927	Ida Christine Graham (1901-1982)
1927-1929	Robert MacLaren Keswick (1894-1938)
1929-1931	Keith Alexander Booth (1907-1984)
1931-1937	William Fogel (1903-1991)
1937-1939	David S. Shellenberg (?-?)
1940-1941	Walter George Crane (1906-1979)
1941-1946	Frederick James Hall (1892-1977)
1946-1962	Clarence Earl Cole (1895-1970)
1962	Mr. Backewich
1962-1963	Menno R. Hamm
1963-1964	Peter Frederick Kutcher (1918-2013)
1964-1965	Marguerite A. Willis
1965-1967	Mrs. Gertrude Tait

Teachers

Among the early teachers who worked at Austin School were: Miss Baird (1884, wife of William Cairns), D. W. Broadfoot (Spring-Fall 1885), John McLean (Spring 1886), Caroline Sparling (Fall 1886), Lauchlin McQuarrie (Spring 1887 - pt Fall 1888, died before term end), Margaret Campbell (Spring-Fall 1889), D. C. McKillok (Spring-Fall 1890), Kate Cox (Spring 1891), Fannie Walls (Fall 1891), and Annie Baird (Spring-Fall 1892).

Period	Teachers
1893	John McIntyre (all grades, Spring; ? grades, Fall), B. M. Mawhinney (? grades, Fall)
1894	Maggie Van Alstein (all grades, Spring; junior grades, Fall), W. A. Ross (Fall, senior grades)
1895	Margaret Emily Buchanan (junior grades, Fall, wife of John Bremner Craig), W. A. Ross (all grades, Spring; senior grades, Fall)
1896	Margaret Emily Buchanan (junior grades, Fall), W. A. Ross (all grades, Spring; senior grades, Fall)
1897	Margaret Emily Buchanan (junior grades, Fall), Edna A. Oliver (junior grades, Spring), W. A. Ross (senior grades)
1898	Margaret Emily Buchanan (junior grades), William Thomas Daniel Lathwell (senior grades, Fall), W. A. Ross (senior grades, Spring)
1899	Margaret Emily Buchanan (junior grades, Spring), William Thomas Daniel Lathwell (senior grades, Spring), Neil Livingstone (senior grades, Fall), Flora E. Wilson (junior grades, Spring)
1900	Francis Henry “Frank” Belton (senior grades, Fall), Neil Livingstone (senior grades, Spring), Flora E. Wilson (junior grades)
1901	Francis Henry “Frank” Belton (senior grades), Grace E. Smale (junior grades, Fall), Flora E. Wilson (junior grades, Spring)
1902	records not available
1903	records not available
1904	records not available
1905	Olive M. Oswald (junior grades), Albert E. Smith (senior grades)
1906	Frances H. Creighton (grades 1-4, Fall), Henry Johnston “Harry” Everall (grades 5-9, Fall), Chester C. McClellan (grades 5-9, Spring), Olive M. Oswald (grades 1-4, Spring)
1907	Frances H. Creighton (junior grades), Henry Johnston “Harry” Everall (senior grades)

Other teachers who worked at Austin School through the years included: Henry J. Everall (1908-1910), Laura J. Ronrig (1908-1909), Kate S. Ball (1909-1910), James Cameron (1910-1912), Gertrude Macdougall (1910-1914), Kathleen Johnson (1913-1914), Robert Williamson (1914-1915), Cordelia Mackay (1914), M. A. Dixon (1915), Grace Huntley (1915-1916), Edith Andrew (1915-1916), Arthur E. Cooke (1916-1917), Anna Stewart (1916-1917), L. C. Anderson (1917), Myrtle McQueen (1917-1918), L. Baldwin (1917), Ethel Collier (1917-1918), Miss McIntosh (1918-1920), Edith L. Cusack (1920-1921), Dorothy Mutch (1920-1921), F. E. Bowsfield (1920-1921), Jean M. Avery (1921-1923), Edith Gair (1921-1922), E. Birch (1921), Mary R. Russell (1921-1922), Olive Erickson (1922-1924), Alice M. Pieper (1923-1924), Ida C. Graham (1924-1927), Wilfrid G. Booth (1924-1927), Frances M. Jones (1924-1926), Mary C. Campbell (1926-1927), Mary Cameron Cowan (1928-1938), Mary I. Morris (1928-1933), Keith Alexander Booth (1929-1931), Peter M. Livingstone (1933-1937), Phyllis C. Mitchell (1936-1937), John L. Holmes (1937-1938), Audrey M. Poyser (1937-1943, 1947-1948), Barbara Anna Robinson (1938-1942), Dorothy P. Fraser (1938-1939), Jean Gertrude Lennox (1939), Hannah Margaret Robinson (1939-1940), Eleanor Lavinea Brown (1941), Anita O. Heim (1942-1944), Margaret Anderson (1943), Jane Frances Fillmore BA (1943), Thelma Rose Irene Osman (1943-1946), Margaret Mary Brown (1943-1947), Alice P. Hardisty (1944-1945), Irene Rosemary Feher (1945), Eva Eileen Duncan (1945), Roland Gauntron (1946), Lois M. Harkness (1947), Jean D. Hotel (1948), Peter Black (1948-1951), Gerald Lionel Kuran (1949-1950), Lydia P. Harvey (1948-1950), Wilma Stock (1950), Patricia Duncan (1951-1954), Mary J. Roy (1951), Mary Stimpson (1952-1953), Doreen Miller (1952-1953), Sheena H. Williams (1953-1955), Robena S. Lowe (1953-1954), Edith Cronk (1954-1955), L. W. Stephens (1954-1955), A. J. Polz (1954-1955), Leona D. Riddell (1955-1956), Kathleen A. Dennis (1955-1957), Gilbert E. Brown (1955-1959), B. Trudeau (1955-1956), Christina Whyte (1956), John Naherney (1956), Mrs. Marjorie E. Seaman (1956-1960), C. Joan Whyte (1957-1959), G. Raymer (1957-1959), Nancy A. Wilson (1958-1961), Marguerite Willis (1958-1960), Norma Jorgenson (1959-1960), Myrna Peck Williams (1959-1965), Gertrude Tait (1959-1962), Ralph Rabinovitch (1959-1960), Marjorie E. Manns (1960-1964), Anne Zamrykut (1961-1962), Eunice Stephenson (1961-1962), Grace H. Hay (1962-1965), Beryl E. Dennis (1962-1965), Margaret M. Peacock (1962-1964), Miss Graham (1964), Glen Lowe (1964-1965), Gertrude McGregor (1964-1965), Miss Mary Jane Brewster (1965), Miss Karen Armstrong (1965), Miss Marlene Dilk (1965).

Photos & Coordinates

Postcard view of Austin School (no date) Source: Walter Beatty Postcard view of Austin School (1920s) by Charles I. Meyers Source: Archives of Manitoba, School Inspectors Photographs, GR8461, A0233, C131-1, page 53. Austin School (1967) Source: Archives of Manitoba, Architectural Survey - Austin 7. John Seaman with his newly-built model of Austin School (July 1985) Source: Jacquie Jones Austin School commemorative monument at the original building site (June 2012) Source: Gordon Goldsborough The replacement Austin School commemorative monument (November 2015) Source: Neil Christoffersen Site Coordinates (lat/long): N49.94884, W98.93258 denoted by symbol on the map above

See also:

Historic Sites of Manitoba: Austin Collegiate / Austin Elementary School (Austin, Municipality of North Norfolk)

Sources:

Death registration [Lauchlin McQuarrie], Manitoba Vital Statistics.

Board of Education registers (A 0050), GR7643, Archives of Manitoba.

Summative half-yearly returns for school districts (A 0051), GR0571, Archives of Manitoba.

“The Indian famine fund,” Winnipeg Tribune, 4 March 1897, page 4.

“The Austin School re-opened [...],” MacGregor Herald, 4 January 1940, page 5.

Annual Reports of the Manitoba Department of Education, Manitoba Legislative Library.

A Rear View Mirror: A History of the Austin and Surrounding Districts by Anne M. Collier, Altona: Friesen Printing, 1967.

One Hundred Years in the History of the Rural Schools of Manitoba: Their Formation, Reorganization and Dissolution (1871-1971) by Mary B. Perfect, MEd thesis, University of Manitoba, April 1978.

Through Fields and Dreams: A History of the Rural Municipality of North Norfolk and MacGregor by The History Book Committee of the North Norfolk-MacGregor Archives, 1998, pages 841-844.

We thank Neil Christoffersen, Jacquie Jones, and Gordon Booth for providing additional information used here.

This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough and Nathan Kramer.

Page revised: 11 September 2023

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