Prompt # 30 – First Day of School

Prompt # 30 - First Day of School

When I started school I was five years eight and one-half months old and I was SO ready. I couldn't wait to learn to read. I was the oldest. I was the first to go. Even my best friends, the twins across the road, were born four months after me so they had to wait another year before they could start. That meant that when I got there, to the Grade One and Two room in Oak River Elementary School in Manitoba (this was before kindergarten was invented) I only knew one other person in the room, my cousin Ken who was in Grade Two, and maybe Brian and Gerald whose parents were friends of my parents.

I don't remember what I wore but I would have carried a book bag filled with all the supplies which had been on the list given out in August-pencils, sharpener, erasers, Hilroy scribblers, ruler. And I would have carried the beautiful wine-coloured enameled tin lunch box with the picture of the new Queen Elizabeth II wearing a blue dress and diamond crown. The lunch kit was a gift from my BC grandmother. I remember my Dad asked me when I got home “Did you sing God Save the King?” and I answered, “No, silly, God Save the Queen (and O Canada).”

The school van would have picked me up at our front door at 8:25 am and driven us into town. School must have started at 9 but there were other stops on the way of the four mile trip. Private cars were contracted as school vans, different drivers each year, from someone along our route-Blacks, Brays, Burts, Haggertys, Bridgemans, Browns, Powers, Thompsons, and sometime others, usually those with fathers who worked at the military base ten miles away and their families were renting empty farmhouses along our road. We were often nine or ten children in the car with the driver, the little ones sitting on the knees of the older ones. This was also before seatbelts were invented. In twelve years I never heard of one school van accident. The vans picked us up again at the school at 3:30 and we were home by 3:55.

My first day of school was a day of happy surprises. The school used to invite future Grade Ones to attend one day of school in the spring, so that we could observe the classroom routine, find out where the washrooms were, meet the teachers. I was thrilled by the Grade One teacher who hosted me on my prep day. She was beautiful-Miss B-and she charmed me by telling me her name was Joan too, the same as mine. I was so sad over the summer when I learned that my Grade One teacher in September was going to be Mrs S. But when I got there, who could believe my good luck! Mrs S was Miss B. She had just married over the summer, but her name was still Joan. It was my lucky day.

Mrs S is in our class picture for that first year, but you can tell, she didn't come back for my Grade Two year. The photo also tells me what I wore. I forgot that we wore tunic uniforms that first year. Navy blue, with a white blouse. Of all the kids in this photo, I can still name each one. Of the ten Grade Ones, only four graduated with me twelve years later, along with some of the Grade Twos and others from Cardale, a nearby smaller town. Walter, Ricky, Ken, Carol, and Gordon moved away. Their fathers worked in town jobs—municipal clerk, hotel operator, construction, garage operator, mechanic. John and Harriet, centre row, L1 and L3, only spoke Dutch when they arrived that year. The tallest boy, Pond, was sixteen years old and had just arrived from China. He was only in our room for a short while, until he learned enough English to move to the next grades. This was before ESL was invented too, but Pond did get English immersion. He finished school and was working in Brandon before the rest of us finished Grade Twelve.

To the best of my knowledge, all these kids are still alive, but I don't hear a lot of news from Oak River as I have no family still living there, and none of us stayed. We left for post-secondary education or employment opportunities. Only about two still live in the district. The farms are bigger than they used to be, but they require fewer workers, fewer farm families. The old elementary school is gone now. The kids go to school in the “new” high school building, opened in 1961. The high school kids are bused to Rivers. The town is smaller too, so small that when I try to list it as my hometown, Facebook won't even accept it, as if it no longer exists. But I know it's still there. Also, note to genealogists. The date on this photograph is incorrect. My first day of school was in September 1954 and the photo was taken in May 1955. Honest. I am sitting front row L5, with the centre part.