Historic Sites of Manitoba: Silver Plains School No. 123 (RM of Morris)

The Silver Plains School District was established formally in May 1881 and a school was built in the fall of 1882, at NW31-5-2E in the Rural Municipality of Morris, for the sum of $800. In January 1883, it opened for classes under teacher Mr. S. A. Sutherland. Over the next few years, there was a succession of teachers, including Alexander Todd (1892) and Miss Mary Anne Blackwell (1895). In 1905, the school building was sold and moved to Aubigny where it was used as a boarding house. A new building was erected. It was moved in 1939 to the farm of John Manchelenko, on the southwest corner of River Lot 427, about a mile southeast of the former site, and placed on a concrete basement. The school closed in 1966, and thereafter local students attended Carleton School and eventually Morris School. The school building is no longer present at the site but a few of the trees planted around it survived the catastrophic flood of 1950. In September 2015, a sign commemorating the school was erected there.

Among the teachers of Silver Plains School were H. R. Richie (1897) and Edna Lenora Perry (1942).

Silver Plains School (no date) by A. J. Manning Source: Archives of Manitoba, School Inspectors Photographs, GR8461, A0233, C131-1, page 41. Silver Plains School commemorative sign (September 2015) Source: Gordon Goldsborough Site Coordinates (lat/long): N49.43805, W97.30073 denoted by symbol on the map above

Sources:

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

Cummin’s Rural Directory Map for Manitoba published by the Cummins Map Company, 404 Chambers of Commerce, Winnipeg, 1923. [Copies held by Edward M. Ledohowski and Gordon Goldsborough]

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.

Furrows in the Valley: A History of the Municipality and its People compiled by the Morris History Book Committee, edited by Lenore Eidse, 1980.

Aerial photograph A11638-76 [1948], Manitoba Air Photo Library.

A Prairie Girl’s Life: The Story of the Reverend Edna Lenora Perry by Edna Lenora Perry, 2014. [Winnipeg Public Library]

We thank Mariette Allen for assistance in locating an aerial photograph of Silver Plains School and Nathan Kramer for providing additional information used here.

This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.

Page revised: 28 November 2020

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