W.E. Thompson students joined the rural youth in Grade 9 at KDHS
March 7, 2023
I have already written memories of S.S. No. 3, the Southline School that all the Hollands children attended, beginning with Grandpa Alfred. I was about to send more stories about its history when this clipping appeared in my Treasure Box and completely distracted me.
1951-52, Grade 6 class at W.E. Thompson Public School, Kincardine
Back row, Bruce Threndyle (left), teacher, Dale Hartwick, Bob Chapman; fourth row, Ron Parkinson (left), Don Murray, Doug Love, Bruce McKay, Don Nimmo, Ian McKay, John Bradley, Wayne Pollock; third row, Dick Goodwin (left), Ted Surridge, Bob McTavish, Don McLeod, Dale Brown, Gary Mix, Wayne Scott, Dale Fenton, George Wayland, Albert Fry; second row, Sally Riggin (left), Jaquie Moore, Denise Loveridge, Donna Finlayson, Donna Smith, Delilah Needham, Ann Mitchell, Barb Stanley, Barb Emmerton, Gail Graham; and in front, Barb Campbell (left), Bernice Collins, Betty White, Barb Clarke, Doris Farley, Ann Barrager, Sharon Sinclair, Nancy Taylor
These are the pupils who entered Grade 9 with me in 1954. We were divided alphabetically into Mrs. Stratton’s and another teacher’s home forms. (Does anyone remember the other teacher?)
Our classrooms were on opposite corners of the second floor in the old high school which we shared with Grade 11, I think. The teachers rotated to our classes but we did go down to the science room and up to the Assembly Hall for physical education. Sometimes our light fixtures swung merrily as a result of energetic classes above us.
Fridays were French test days. I hope I never inflicted that load on my students regularly. In Craft classes, Mrs. Ferris taught the girls to knit and crochet. Crocheting became a passion for me but knitting was a great trial. Did the boys go to Cadets for this period or was there a shop of some kind in the basement?
We were also seated in class in alphabetical order by our last name. That meant that my best friend, Sheila Anderson, and my cousin, Marguerite Arnold, sat in the front two seats on the window side of the room and I had the front seat at the other side near the door into the cloakroom.
We rural students ate our lunches at our desks (or did we go down to the Grade 10 rooms?). Then Lois Orr, my Southline chum who was in Grade 10, and I walked downtown to Murray’s Dairy to top off lunch with a five-cent ice cream cone.
My Pollock grandparents had given me a bicycle as a Grade 8 graduation gift; so, for the first couple of months, I biked to school. One day, when we left the school after lunch, my bike was no longer parked under the maple tree where I had left it. Some enterprising boy (?) had “borrowed” it to speed up his trip home for lunch. But soon, colder days necessitated choosing the long bus ride.
Most of these children can be found in the 1955 KDHS Yearbook, more mature members of Grades 10A and 10B in the new school. At that level, we were separated according to our choice of studies - Latin or Commercial - not by the alphabet.
The pictures there have the rural students from schools in the township. Some of the W.E. Thompson people are not to be found as they had moved from the community or even into the world of work. Time does march on!!
--Ruth Anne Hollands Robinson
March, 2023
March, 2023
Comment on this story? Click here.
Related Stories
No related stories.
