Shellbrook Museum's One Room Schoolhouse

written by Nancy Carswell

This class photo from the Shellbrook Heritage Museum collection was donated by W.T. Bill Smith who is in the middle row.  1946-47 school year, Miss Miller's Grade 9-10 class. Back row: Frank Sokolowsky, Russel Kennedy, Dave Roberts, Leonard Harder, Ted Sokolowsky, Tom Bibby, Johnny Halliwell.  Middle Row: Frank Zawada, Allan Miller, Bertha Sillespi Gillespi, Marion Wilson, Lillian Stevens, Lois Canaday, Joyce Fisher, Joyce Mansfeld, Anne Hislop, Sylvia Wilkinson, W.T. Bill Smith, Earl Jewitt, Miss Miller.  Front Row: Bernard Lybon Luyben, Reta Mortensen, Betty Schaan, Alba Roberts, Joyce Shapira, Shirley Mansfield, June Goudal, Ronald Harvey Hadley.

In celebration of its 40^th anniversary, the Shellbrook Heritage Museum is sharing a series of articles focusing on a part of its collection. The homesteaders and homemakers highlighted in previous articles sought not only a better life for themselves but for their children and commonly viewed education as a foundation.

When a community had enough students, it applied for a school grant. Saskatchewan schools in the late 1800's were voluntary and taught the 3Rs—reading, (w)riting, and 'rithmetic. It was hoped that schooling would facilitate legal communication around homesteading and prevent con artists from taking advantage of immigrants who did not speak English. In the early 1900's, schools continued the 3Rs with some adding school gardens and agricultural lessons. While school was free, most students in the late 1800s and early 1900s left after achieving the mandatory Grade 4-5 to take up responsibilities on the family farm.

The Museum has a furnished one room schoolhouse from the Rayside School District #2808. It is a typical schoolroom with blackboard, teacher desk, student desks, and cloak room. Senior visitors may recognize the readers and the roll down maps. With a little imagination, one can hear a spelling bee, catch the laughter of outside games, sense the anxiety of a visit from the school inspector, and witness the splendor of an elaborate Christmas concert with students proudly presenting plays, poems, and songs.

The Shellbrook history book, Treasured Memories, explains that the first Shellbrook school was built in 1910 when the Pleasantville and Parkview schools became overcrowded.  It was located at the intersection of 1^st Avenue and 1^st Street Miss Dowling, a first year teacher, was hired.

The student population served by the Shellbrook school rapidly outgrew the one room and in 1912 a two-storey brick building opened with D.L. Fitzpatrick as principal and teacher and Miss Dowling as teacher. On January 16, 1913, the Shellbrook Chronicle reported the results of the annual meeting of the Shellbrook School District No. 252.  Some expenditures listed are: "Paid teachers' salary $1140.00", "Paid for erecting an repairing schoolhouse, outhouses, etc. $3345.19", and "Paid for school library and reference books $10.95".

Another growth spurt in student population doubled the two rooms to four in 1919 with the separate "Little" school added in 1923.  These classrooms served the student population well into the 1940's. The current Shellbrook high school name honours W. P. Sandin who dedicated over 18 years of service to improving local schools. Sandin commented that his greatest challenges were obtaining funding and agreeing on the location for schools with the Department of Education which supports the truth of the adage "History repeats itself." 

The one room schoolhouse model has modern admirers. Authors of Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns and The One World Schoolhouse: Education Reimagined admire the one room schoolhouse's student centered approach because the teacher had to customize learning and the learner had to practice independence. In a multi-grade environment, senior students had many opportunities to review and consolidate learning when they or the teacher taught content to junior students and junior students had previews of future content and concepts. Students practiced self-discipline as they worked independently on teacher-assigned activities. The one room schoolhouse model leverages the diversity within its learning community.

The Museum Committee and Friends of the Museum continue to invest energy in inventorying the collection. The inventorying process is the first step as the museum moves from storing artifacts to telling their stories. If you would like to help, please drop in to see Alanna Carswell at the library or call Marlene Fellows at 747-2475.

The Museum welcomes monetary donations for inventory show cases and other donations to help better display items to tell their stories.  Please make donations to the Town of Shellbrook to receive a receipt.

Prosser Cloth Photograph Album

Added to the Digital Collections! Prosser Cloth Photograph Album, R802a, gift of the Prosser family.


Sit back and enjoy the slideshow or click on it to visit the Picasa web album and view at your leisure.

Museum Honours Homemakers

written by Nancy Carswell

This framed illustration donated by Mary (Wetzel) Dewar to the Shellbrook & District Heritage Museum is a resume of the activities of the Pleasantville Homemaker Club from March 1939 to February 1940. March notes that a mat made by Mrs. McTaggart now resides in the Queen's bedroom and April has an astounding list that reflects the diversity of homemaking skills; "Displays of home canned meats, fruit, vegetables, marmalade, candied peel ~ Rugs, quilts, quilt patches ~ Articles made from sacks & old clothing ~ Home spun & knitted mitts & socks. Slips of plants & garden seeds exchanged." Their May and June cemetery activities are directly related to their objective of a shelter for the cemetery pictured in the photo.

In celebration of its 40th anniversary, the Shellbrook & District Heritage Museum is writing articles focusing on a part of its collection. The previous article was about homesteaders and this one honours homemakers.

The traditional division of labour assigned the responsibilities of homemaker to women and a folk saying that recognizes the demands of homemaking is "Man may work from sun to sun but woman's work is never done." Daily, homemakers were responsible for childcare, healthcare, housekeeping duties, and making meals. Weekly the local pattern was most likely Monday laundry, Tuesday ironing, Wednesday baking, Thursday shopping, Friday sewing, and Saturday housecleaning. If the homemaker was hosting the Sunday church service in their home, Saturday housecleaning may have had extra burdens.

A homemaker of 33 years, Mrs. Sarah Zelickson of Hirsch estimated her hours and informed the newspaper the Nor'West Farmer she had "put in 48,180 hours scrubbing, cleaning and washing." This accounts for 4 hours a day. In her other hours, "I have cooked 361,351 meals, baked 78,800 loaves of bread, 12,045 cakes, 5,158 pies, preserved 3,300 quarts of fruit, churned 13,728 pounds of butter and raised 4,950 poultry." This was all manual labour; knuckle bruising scrub boards rather than washing machines, blistering heavy irons rather than electric steam irons, demanding woodstoves rather than electric stoves, inefficient brooms rather than efficient vacuums, pedal-powered treadle sewing machine rather than electric, etc. A homemaker with milk cows may or may not do the milking but would most likely separate out the cream, churn the butter, and perhaps make cottage cheese with the skim milk. Even the water was manual labour. Blessed was the homemaker who had a well with a pump and did not have to draw every bucket up by hand. The seasons also had a pattern. In the spring, the essential vegetable garden needed planting and weeding. In summer, garden produce and wild berries needed to be harvested. Berry picking could be a social event and some families would camp overnight if the berry patch was far from home. Food not eaten fresh would be preserved; fruit would be canned and cucumbers and beans would be pickled.

In the fall, the root vegetables, potatoes, carrots, parsnips, onions, and beets, would be harvested and stored in the cold room or root cellar. If the poultry was butchered early, it would be canned, while a late butchering could be frozen. Fall threshing crews of 10-20 men would need three square meals a day plus field lunches in the afternoon and the larger the homestead, the longer the crew would stay.

The onset of winter meant constantly feeding the woodstove to heat the house. Having a logger for a husband was a mixed blessing. While the income was welcome, an absent husband meant any outside chores, wood and livestock, became the homemakers if she was not doing those chores already. It is not surprising that "homemakers" often wished they were just homemakers, and not also farm labourers.

Why did women stay homemakers? Their apron strings were tied to their husbands purse strings through legislation. Joan Champ writes in "The Unenviable Circumstances of Women in Saskatchewan Before 1920" that "Pioneer women were vital to economic success of the family farm in Saskatchewan. Sandra Rollings-Magnusson argues that, because of this, the federal and provincial governments enacted and maintained legislation that limited the independence of women in an effort to ensure that women would remain tied to the farm and contribute to the grain economy." Women were non-persons—the Dominion Election Act decreed "No woman, idiot, lunatic or criminal shall vote."

As well as the endless physical work, some homemakers suffered from the psychological effects of isolation. The University of Saskatchewan found women eager to join their Homemaker Club initiative modeled on the Women's Institutes in Ontario. Champ writes the clubs "quickly became agents of adult education, providing courses in the skills of homemaking." They also provided treasured opportunities for socializing.

Like homesteaders, homemakers practiced a long list of virtues that Shellbrook continues to benefit from, especially the virtues of resilience, compassion, and grace.

Thank you to Hazel Barkway for her willingness to be interviewed. Her valuable knowledge was the foundation of this article.

The Museum Committee and Friends of the Museum continue to invest energy in inventorying the collection. The inventorying process is the first step as the museum moves from storing artifacts to telling their stories. If you would like to help, please drop in to see Alanna Carswell at the library or call Marlene Fellows at 747-2475. The Museum welcomes monetary donations for inventory show cases and other donations to help better display items to tell their stories. Please make donations to the Town of Shellbrook to receive a receipt.