The Hardy School District was established in April 1928, named for local settler R. W. Hardy (father of J. R. W. Hardy). As of 1929, a one-room schoolhouses operated at NW15-2-14E in what later became the Rural Municipality of Piney, on land donated by Mr. B. Griffiths. In 1949, the building was moved one mile east, to SW23-2-14E (about N49.13457, W95.61867). The school closed in 1953 and henceforth students from this area went to Sprague Consolidated School No. 2437. From April to June 1965, the building was used for classes of Golden Branch School No. 1845, whose schoolhouse (at NW15-2-14E) had burned down early that year. Finally, the Hardy School building was destroyed by fire in July 1965 and, that same year, the district was dissolved. No vestige of the school remains at the site.
Among the teachers who worked Hardy School through the years were Lila Rogers Baskerville (1929), Evelyn King Eyolfson (1932), Miss Harding, Alice Wardrop, Helen Blight, Irma Van Camp, Mrs. Rowe, Louis Korody, Velasta Matejka, Mary Sapach, Melvin Borody, Lillian Swanky, Rose Melynarczyk, Paul Zeretski, Ernest Brennan, Ami Paul, and Lillian Asmondson Anderson (1953).
Hardy School (no date) by Clarence Moore
Source: Archives of Manitoba, School Inspectors Photographs,
GR8461, A0233, C131-3, page 112.
Painting of Hardy School (no date)
Source: Sprague and District Historical Museum
Former site of Hardy School (August 2020)
Source: Gordon GoldsboroughSite Coordinates (lat/long): N49.13290, W95.64207
denoted by symbol on the map above
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.
Hardy School District No. 2179, Sprague, Manitoba, 1928 to 1965 by Stephen Stamler, privately published booklet, no date. [Copy at Sprague and District Historical Museum]
We thank Doris Hovorka (Sprague and District Historical Museum) and Nathan Kramer for providing information used here.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 6 August 2021
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