< one teacher and 42 students. ’ came obsolete when Clar- “bers have achieved a certain ONE PICTURE of one class, That’s all it takes to gen-_ erate memories 45 years lat- er. Students and the teacher talk about their time at the school that. was converted from army barracks and be- ence Michiel was built in 1963, Ten students still live in Terrace, with. one ‘other in Kitwanga. Two class mem- level of notoriety in arts and entertainment. Margo Bates is the, published author of P.S. Don't Tell Your Mother and John Adames has been the. drummer for music °* bands Prairie Oyster and The Bebop Cowboys. These are some of the . former Classmates still: Terrace. . The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, November 22, 2006 - A5 Dow n by the river - Memories of Terrace’ s old Riverside Elementary School i attempt to bypass the hotels and bars along Greig Ave. Along the route, her mother to make soup. not only has memories of the Tt She fell on concrete a piece of crumbling cement gotinto the wound. —. ~. “TL still have a piece of. Riverside in my knees,” she said. SO , she would pick mushrooms for 8 The mother of four kids ” former school, but a piece of while playing dodgeball and’ "Pat Hall . Pat Hall spent grades l-- 7 .at Riverside Elementary ‘School before going on to Skeena Junior and Second- ¢ __ ary High School. He maintains contact or knows the [5 or so people still living in Terrace from his 196] Grade 4 class. There has never been a. ° reunion strictly for former Riverside students but Hall says there’s a bond between them, . io When there’s a_ high school reunion, the River- side students will look for each other. “Usually, it’s a sub re- union,” said Hall, a parts specialist for Chrysler. He remembers his Grade 4 teacher, too. “Mrs. McFadden? Oh yeah! She was a sweetheart,” Hall said. “She was so short, she could sit on one of those wooden stools and swing her legs without fouching the floor.” Hall. left Terrace for a ' four years, but returned with his future wife, Laurie. He’s been here ever since and he. says he misses seeing his old NELLIE McFadden's Grade 4 class at Riverside Elementary 1961. Left to right, front row: Robert Naylor, Jelju (vanoff, Pat Hall, Ricky Jeffer- ies, Bobby Middleton, Larry Pronto, Allan Oleksewich, Gus: Gilbertson, John Adames, Jimmy Olsen and Dale Dowd. Second row: Leanne Anderson, Sylvia Kirsch, Cheryl Tibidault, Shelly Cyr, Cheryl Hebert, Elizabeth Horsfield, Roy VanderVelde, Donna Barnet, Linda Beckley, Back row: Robby Rose, Eddy Haugland, Fred Stoba and John VanNeiderhausen. . Judith Kurusu, Doris Haugland, Beverly Croot and Julie Roper. Third row: Rhonda Norbirg, Norma Schulte, Julie Anweiler, Darlene Glaim, ° Audrey Troelstra, Colleen Holt, Lorna Mclver, Cathleen Hallock, Lorraine Jones, Judy Young, Patricia Kenney, Penny Hyde, Margo Bates. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO . elementary school. “When you drive by the curling rink or the ball. field and don’t see [Riverside], you do get kind of 4 nostal- gic feeling,” Hall said. Bob Middleton Bob Middleton, 55, fishes for childhood school photos on the other end of the phone line. “You've got to remem- ber,” Middleton said. “That was 45 years ago.” Middleton, too, spent his elementary school years at Riverside when winters owere winters, He used to walk to and from the school every day from the 4700 block Walsh _ Ave, His childhood friend and classmate ‘Eddy Haugland would be his best man when ‘he wed Gerry Hainstock in 1970.. _ He says most of the kids - Pioneer teacher had stint at Riverside | have méved away but he still sees people from River- side, including Pat Halland teacher Nellie McFadden... He remembers his Grade 4 teacher, and all teach- ers during the era, would — students with: a. pointer if they were not pay-- “whack ing attention. Middleton, who owns ‘and drives his own truck; re- members the peculiar build- ‘ing -where the school was, ‘housed. , “It was an army barracks - — they just made a school out Co) of it,” Middleton said, add- ing the buildings were joined by makeshift hallways. Middleton used to play. on the building’s exposed . pipes, as well as on the fields and in the bushes by the riv- erbank. Donna Wagner, 55, says she appreciated two things she received during her time at Riverside: good teaching and nice discipline. _ “They were all good memories,” said Wagner of her seven years at the . school. A couple odd incidences also stick out in hindsight. Wagner says she was. in Grade 2- when the school’s principal met students out- side of. where the Legion is, shouting and urging the children.to hurry in to the “school. It turned out the Royal Bank, where Twin City Meats is now located, had been robbed and the sus- pects were , fleeing, Wagner also recalls schoo] administrators asking the students to take home pieces of rotting wood from the buildings to demonstrate the need to clése the school. It would close in, 1963, after Wagner and her class- mates had gone on to high ~ school. . But for Wagner, says she pulls out her old school photos twice a year, the school’s closure-has left a void here. It dawned on her this past “January outside the curling club when her granddaugh- ter was pointing to where her grandma had attended school. “We'll never see that again — same as Skeena,” Wagner said. _ Alfan Oleksewich Allan Oleksewich - digs _feep into his memory: bank who . “and what he finds are ® good memories. ““T found it was a fun. ‘time, I enjoyed it,” Olekse- wich said. . It was a different cra then (he walked to school from the Horseshoe, too} and a better one, he adds. “I think it was a lot. dif- ferent then than it is now,’ he said. “Everybody, knew:. everybody then.” Many of his classmates went through the system with him all the way to . Grade 12 and Oleksewich says he sees some of the ‘ people ocassionally. What Oleksewich__ re- members most is that River- side had the largest field of the elementary schools and_ therefore, it hosted the an- nual track and field day. “The schools would get together and parade down Lakelse,” said Oleksewich, adding he enjoyed the high “jump, running and potato sack races, events. | Oleksewich, who works as a kitchen designer at Irly Bird building centre, also recalls being part of the among — other school’s last Grade 7 class. Norma Mendel, 56, and her family moved here in’ 1957 from’ acrural area out- side of Prince George where she. attended a small. two- building school. Riverside’s converted barracks,. therefore, were a ’ shock. “For me, it was just Norma Mendel | huge,” she. said. we had.” Born Norma Schulte, she attended Riverside for Grade 2,4 and 5. Mendel lives in the same house her father bought on south Kalum, the street that happened to be the border cachement area between Riverside and Cassie Hall schools. “The school board kept changing the boundary,” _ said Mendel, adding her old- er brother. attended nearby Cassie Hall, while she had to walk the greater distance. Mendel said. “You think there are bears now? There were bears then!’ Mendel ~ would cut ‘ through the rail yard in an . “Terrace.. was so different from what “until” “was” ‘completed: Six: “years And_ it’ was scary. for. ’ child, she adds. . . “It was scary, it was a _long way there,” Nellie McFadden Now 86, former teacher Nellie McFadden .remains™ : the pleasant and accommo- dating woman her students "remember fondly. “T enjoyed working there, the roomy spaces and the friendly staff,” she said. ‘McFadden, who worked. .. 24 years as a teacher and learning assistant, donated her old class.and staff photos| ‘to the school district because — ' she felt they. would eventu- ally be thrown away. McFadden. started tech ing at “old Riverside” 1957 and remained there “Clarence “ “Michiel later. She recalls how cold it - - was at the school as the wind would howl down from Ter- race Mountain. And she remembers the kids. “The kids really ap-. pealed to me — I never really saw a bad kid.” Contrary to what Middle- _ton says, McFadden says she never. physically disciplined a student. “I never, ever had a kid strapped. There’s nothing more embarrassing _ for a° kid, ” she said. As for the school, McFadden says she didn’t feel sad to see the school go. “It’s like progress, I guess _ it’s one of those things that happens.” she : says she liked the spacious. Classes and cloakrooms. ': EDNA_ FISHER (nee Robson) spent 25 years as a teacher in Stewart, Hazelton, — Terrace, Rosswood and Topley. In 1947, she met her husband ~ William Howard (Hud) Fisher when she moved to Terrace to teach at Riverside School. They married in 1948 and settled down to raise their family of five chil- _ dren. She recounts her time at the old school and other local teach- ing jobs. , The school I had been assigned ‘to. was Riverside School — one of | the Army H-Huts which had just been converted to a school. There were only two rooms at the time: Grade | which was taught by Al- ice Campbell and a Grade 2 class for me. Each room was the entire length of the H-Hut, or barracks as I called them. There were around 40 pupils in my class. The desks. were bolted to long slats, so were impossible for me to move. They took up about 1/3 of the room, the - other 2/3 being a large play area. There was one shelf at the back of the room with hooks un- derneath to hang coats on. Lunch - pails were put on the top shelf. One day at noon, one little boy came up to me and seid “Miss Robson, I can’t find my lunch pail.” Looking towards the back of the room, 1 could plainly see one lunch pail on that shelf. What canI say?” That fall was very wet — rain, rain and more rain, and when. it ‘rained the roof leaked. It leaked | so badly that buckets and basins had to be put on the pupils’ desks to catch the drips, then emptied at recess and noon. I can’t remem- . ber how long that went on, but I guess the school board must.have had the roof fixed as soon as they could. -In January 1963, I was hired to teach Mrs. Harper’s class at’ Cassie Hall School, and had to re- sign because of pregnancy. It was a Grade 2/3 class with about 40 pupils, It was pretty hard to live up to Mrs. Harper’s standard (she was an excellent teacher), but I tried my best. One of the rules of the class was that pupils were not to ask to go to the bathroom, rather they could write their name on the blackboard when they went to the bathroom and erase their name when they came back. The next person could go when the board was clear ( I think a boy then a- girl). ; Anyway, one day I noticed a young boy - very serious little fellow, walking very quickly to- EDNA Fisher, on the right wearing a white coat, walks with an- other teacher and students outside Riverside School in 1947. * CONTRIBUTED.PHOTO -wards the blackboard and as he was about to lift the chalk, he suddenly stopped, turned around and with a very bewildered look on his face started slowly back to his desk, muttering to himself: “T thought I had to go”- but it went down again”. Such honesty! “In September 1957, Hud suggested that it would be nice if I were to apply to the school board for a teacher’s position at Rosswood: We could move there and be close to his work, saving him about 60 miles of travel each day. “But there is no school out there” I said. “Then they would have to build one because with our kids and those already living there, there would be enough for a school” replied Hud. So I ap- proached the school board, and by the middle of October, a school. _ had been built and about 12 pupils. were ready to attend. The school was_ built “on ‘a base of huge logs (so it could be. ‘moved if necessary). The lights were hanging propane lamps (I had to stand on a desk to light the ]. lamps), the heat was from a large _ heater, and there was “one” out- house! - no running water. I think water was supplied in buckets by neighbors. : Some of the childien (most) had never beén to school - some had learned to read through cor- respondence. One boy, about 13 or 14, I put in Grade 4-as he could read but he couldn’t do arithme- tic. Another 10 year old had to go into Grade 1 as he’d never - had any teaching -and so it went! Nothing too much to go on but we got sorted out with Grades 1 to 7. The 7th grader quit school after a‘month'- she just wasn’t interested in school. Two of my girls were in school, but I still had a two year-old son at home and a five year old daughfer.- fortu- nately I found a good babysitter for them. So school lessons proceeded by grouping some grades for some subjects and individual teaching for some. We even put _on a Christmas concert that year which was attended by every resi- — dent in the valley. I’m sure there - had never been a concert there be- fore! Such fun, after so little time for preparation! ~ The settlement of Rosswood was not what you'd call a “close- knit” community. Neighbours were actually miles apart and so .— the children had long walks home. after school - each family group going in opposite directions. -One day about half an-hour after school was dismissed, a group.of children (about 4) came running - back to the school, quite out of. breath and. obviously frightened. Two big wolves had crossed the - road ahead of them! I drove them home about 11/2 miles down the road. After a year. of. teaching. in Rosswood, our family moved back to Terrace: (December 1958) where Hud was again closer to his work — so I resigned. It was a year of hopes and frustrations. Fortu- nately a few of the pupils contin- - ued on with their education, while. . others felt they didn’t really need . an education and were happier to find work in the woods.” .. Fisher grew up in Invermere and Kaslo, eventually moving to Vancouver where she gradu- ated in 1944. She passed away on March 3, 2006 in Terrace. ~