The Empress School District was established in March 1901 and a one-room schoolhouse operated at NW5-4-3E in the Rural Municipality of DeSalaberry. The school closed in June 1963 and the district was dissolved in 1967, its area becoming part of Arnaud Consolidated School, Frontenac Consolidated School, or St. Jean-Baptiste Consolidated School. No vestige of the school building remains at the site.
Among the teachers who worked at Empress School through the years were Eva H. Howard (Fall 1901), F. May Tayler (pt Spring 1905), J. H. Marsh (pt Spring 1905), Sophia Maud Wocks? (Fall 1905), Urica Waddell (pt Spring 1906), Ethel I. Sibley (pt Spring - Fall 1906), Bessie Davis (pt Spring 1907), Laura Rorvig? (pt Spring 1907), Adeline Kelly (Fall 1907 - Fall 1908 and Spring 1912, wife of William Ross Houston), Bertha M. Patterson (pt Spring 1909), R. F. Coubseigh? (pt Spring 1909), Mary D. King (Fall 1909 - Spring 1910), Minnie M. Snider [Sauder/Sander?] (Fall 1910 - Fall 1911), Kathleen Olive Connelly (Fall 1912, wife of Roy Reginald Davies), Sarah M. Connelly (Spring-Fall 1913), Lena A. Waddell (Spring-Fall 1914), Isobel Perrin (January-February 1915), Percy Marchington (March-June 1915), Charles James Bowman (Fall 1915 - Spring 1918), Marguerite Morris Lanthier, Mary Molloy (daughter of John Patrick Molloy), Elsa Pauls Koop, Anne Pauls Brown, Minerva Dearborn McKinnon, Miss Suderman, Miss Stewart, Hazel Andrews, Miss Sawatsky, Nita Friesen, William Neufeld, Christine Nichols, and Harry Thiessen.
Empress School (no date) by A. A. Herriot
Source: Archives of Manitoba, School Inspectors Photographs,
GR8461, A0233, C131-2, page 61.
Empress School (no date)
Source: Arnaud Through the Years, 1974.Site Coordinates (lat/long): N49.28067, W97.16371
denoted by symbol on the map above
Marriage registrations [Adeline Kelly to William Ross Houston, Kathleen Olive Connelly to Roy Reginald Davies], Manitoba Vital Statistics.
Morris East topographic map, 62H/6 East, Series A743 [UFS Reference Collection].
Arnaud Through the Years by Arnaud Historical Society, 1974. [Manitoba Legislative Library]
Summative half-yearly returns for school districts (A 0051), GR0571, Archives of Manitoba.
School division half-yearly attendance reports (E 0757), Archives of Manitoba.
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.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough and Nathan Kramer.
Page revised: 28 November 2025
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