Last week, Kathy and I visited Margaret and Viktor Fast who lived in Nipawin and who now live in the northeast area in Saskatoon. We had a wonderful visit with them recalling old times in Nipawin and at L. P. Miller School where Viktor was the teacher librarian. Driving to their home, I noticed a community school near their home called Henry Kelsey School. Something struck me about the name of the school, and later that evening I had a flashback to my first teaching job in Kinistino in the early 1970's.
At that time most smaller towns had hospitals, and Kathy had been hired to work as the lab tech at the Kinistino hospital. I was hired to teach Grade 9 and 10 English at R. J. Humphreys, a grade 7 to 12 school. In those days there was limited housing for teachers in these smaller towns. Often the principal had the biggest teacherage and the teachers worked their way up to the larger teacherages the longer they stayed in the town. At least that was how it was in Kinistino. The principal, Merlin MacFarlane, had the largest teacherage, and Kathy and I had the smallest, about 500 square feet.
This little white teacherage was located right on the schoolground, and it had been home to many teachers before us like Rubin Rickhardt and Harold Schultz, just to name a few. To the right of the teacherage was the Coop manager's house, and it had a fence along our side of the property. In the background was the Grade 7 to 12 school where I taught. To the left was the elementary school - Henry Kelsey School. There was no fence between the teacherage and the elementary school.
At noon Kathy and I would come home for dinner and balls would be bouncing off the teacherage, kids would be running around our house, and kids would be looking in the windows as we ate. I mentioned at school one day that there wasn't much privacy living at the little teacherage, and somehow it got back to the local school board. They decided to build a fence.
One day a carpenter showed up and built a fence - the back fence went from the back wall of the Henry Kelsey School to the Coop managers fence on the right side of the property. That meant a fence was not needed along that right side where the Coop fence was, and the school itself would be the fence on the left side of the property. A fence was then build from the side of the school to the front side teacherage and from the other right front side of the teacherage to the Coop fence. The back yard was enclosed by the back fence, the front fence was from the school to the teacherage, the teacherage to the Coop fence and the school acted as the fence on the other side. The front yard was open.
It was a rather ingenious plan - not much fence had to be built by using the Coop fence, the side of the school and the teacherage itself to enclose the back yard, except the plan had one flaw. The backyard did not have a gate. When I needed to cut the grass, I had to carry the lawnmower through the house! When Henry Kelsey School had fire drill, half the school children exited from a door on the side of the building into the back yard! In case of a fire the students would have to crawl over a five foot fence or parade through the house! When I mentioned this, a new gate appeared in the fence the next spring.
We had some good times living in that little teacherage surrounded by our new white fence. A few years ago, Kathy and I took a drive through Kinistino, but Henry Kelsey School and the little white teacherage were no longer there. Just a memory sparked by driving past a school in the city.
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