Historic Sites of Manitoba: Palestine School No. 17 (Municipality of WestLake-Gladstone)

The Palestine School District was incorporated in 1872. The first school was located on the northeast quarter of 18-14-11 west of the Principal Meridian, in what is now the Municipality of WestLake-Gladstone. The second school was built in 1890 on a new location, SE21-14-11W. In 1913, Maple School No. 584 and Palestine made arrangements to consolidate and a new school was built in 1917 on the location of the monument at SE28-14-11W. It was Palestine Consolidated School No. 17 until its closure in 1967, due to the formation of the Pine Creek School Division. For a time, the former school building was used as a seed-cleaning plant, but it is now gone. A monument was dedicated at its former site on 8 July 1990.

Among the teachers of Palestine School were Peter Moodie, Hazel M. McDiarmid (1912), Minnie Schooley (1914-1915, daughter of S. Schooley), Maisie F. Singleton (1917-1918), Florence M. Berry (1918-1923), Frances Stanbridge (1923-1927), Maude M. Brown (1928-1929), Doris Kinloch Goodall (1930-1932), Enid Noretta Orth (1932-1936), Kathleen Marion Belton (1936-1937), Mossie Edith Noble (1937-1938), Mary Cameron Cowan (1938-1940), Bernice May McClelland (1941-1942), Margaret Ellen Simpson (1942-1944), Mildred Barnum (1944-1946), Agnes Lillias Stewart (1946-1951), Elizabeth Susan “Bessie” Vatcher (1951-1955), Ruth Alma Emisch (1955-1957), Barrie Kent Heiman (1957-1959), Ruby Marie Hanna (1959-1960), Laura-Jean Freeborn (1960-1962), Robert Finlayson (1962-1963), Iona Ann Aileen Lasson (1963-1964), Viola Ethel Joy Mowat (1964-1965), and Verna Neufeld (1965-1966).

Palestine School (no date) Source: Archives of Manitoba, School Inspectors Photographs, GR8461, A0233, C131-1, page 10. The former Palestine School building (circa 1990) Source: Historic Resources Branch, Public School Buildings Inventory, slide 1454. Palestine School commemorative monument (September 2010) Source: Gordon Goldsborough Site Coordinates (lat/long): N50.21151, W98.90511 denoted by symbol on the map above

See also:

Historic Sites of Manitoba: Maple School No. 584 (Municipality of WestLake-Gladstone)

Sources:

Third Crossing: A History of the First Quarter Century of the Town and District of Gladstone in the Province of Manitoba by Margaret Morton Fahrni and W. L. Morton, Winnipeg, 1946.

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.

Over the Rainbow: Memories of a Country School Teacher by Ruth Emisch, 1993.

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

Manitoba School Records Collection, Palestine School District No. 17 Daily Registers, GR3152, Archives of Manitoba.

We thank Malcolm Bell for providing additional information used here.

This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough and Nathan Kramer.

Page revised: 24 March 2023

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