Historic Sites of Manitoba: Maple Grove School No. 247 (Municipality of Boissevain-Morton)

The Maple Grove School District was established formally in 1883 and it operated a schoolhouse at NE26-2-19W, on land provided by William Ryan, in what is now the Municipality of Boissevain-Morton. The original building was replaced by a more substantial one in 1899. The school closed in June 1967 and the district was dissolved the following year. The former school building is gone but a sign marks its site.

Among the teachers of Maple Grove School were Miss Emma Sturt (1883), Christina Mustard (1895), Hugh Mackenzie (1897), H. McKechnie (1902), Violet C. Collins (1902), George McCrue (1902), George Currie, Mrs. B. George Wilson, Ernest Coulter, Mrs. A. D. Johnston, John Sinclair “Clair” Nelin (1933-1935), Mary Pankin (1935-1938), Mary Marguerite Maloney (1939-1941), Edythe Mary Vatcher (1941-1942), Doris Ruby Pontifex (1942-1944), Phyllis Doreen Clarke (1944-1945), Dorothy Adaline Lehman (1945-1946), Doreen Vivian Cooper (1946-1947), Mary E. Hammond (1947, substitute), Milton George Millard (1947-1948), Margaret Eileen Angus (1948-1949), Doreen Elizabeth Ann Chalmers (1949-1950), Peter Stobbe (1951-1954), Marguerite E. Smith (1954-1956), Shirley Millicent Armstrong (1956-1957), Mary Louise Johnson (1958-1959), Elizabeth Sheila McCausland (1959-1962), Shirley Ann McAuley (1962-1963), Dennis Paul Kozak (1963-1964), and Mrs. Elizabeth McRuer (1964-1967)

Maple Grove School (no date) by W. J. Parr Source: Archives of Manitoba, School Inspectors Photographs, GR8461, A0233, C131-1, page 2. The former Maple Grove School building (circa 1986) Source: Historic Resources Branch, Public School Buildings Inventory, slide 760. The former Maple Grove School grounds, marked only by a few conifers, presumably the remains of its shelterbelt (September 2012) Source: Gordon Goldsborough Site Coordinates (lat/long): N49.16105, W99.90768 denoted by symbol on the map above

Sources:

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.

Beckoning Hills Revisited: Ours is a Goodly Heritage, Morton-Boissevain, 1881-1981 by Boissevain History Committee, c1981, pages 167-168.

A Study of Public School Buildings in Manitoba by David Butterfield, Historic Resources Branch, Manitoba Department of Culture, Heritage and Tourism, 1994, 230 pages.

Reflections: Turtle Mountain Municipality and Killarney, 1882-1982, page 111.

Manitoba School Records Collection, Maple Grove School District No. 247 Daily Registers, GR4072, Archives of Manitoba.

Manitoba School Records Collection, Maple Grove School District No. 247 Daily Registers, GR3152, Archives of Manitoba.

This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough and Nathan Kramer.

Page revised: 4 February 2021

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