Such a gem was River Bend, my first school, located eight miles north of Dauphin on the round-house road.

 

This little white frame school received seventy-five applicants in reply to its advertisement and the trustees, members of the local board elected by the ratepayers in that school disctrict, were besieged by young teachers like myself who practically begged for work.

 

I had submitted my application early with high hopes of a teaching job.  But as time dragged by and I heard nothing, I became more and more discouraged.  Of course, I had answered every single ad I saw.  No luck.

 

One very hot day near the end of July, I was determined to see the chairman of the board of River Bend School.  I asked a neighbour to drive me to the chairman's farm and we walked part-way across a hay field to meet him.  Because he was a kind man who had grown children of his own, Mr. [John] Panko stopped his team to talk to me but I could see that his mind was more on mowing hay on a sunny, dry day than it was on interviewing prospective teachers.

 

After I told him a bit about myself, trying hard to be modest, but I just knew I could be a good teacher, he pushed his straw hat back on his head, looked at me critically and said: "You look too young!"

 

To my surprise, about two weeks later, I got the news that my application had been accepted at River Bend School and that I should present myself for the signing of a contract on Saturday morning.  What joy!  I was going to be a teacher.

 

...

 

My boarding house, a large, white L-shaped house, stood on the banks of the Valley River.  There were eight children in the family, three of whom, Mike, Paul and Marion, were my students.  It was the same Paul who tried to run away home the first day of school.  Marion was in grade three, a blonde, rosy cheeked girl, always smiling.  Mike was a tall, fair-haired boy in grade seven or eight that year.

 

I was very lucky in my first boarding place (and in subsequent ones).  It was the custom for the rural teacher to board out with a family in the district.  Having the teacher as a boarder was considered a prestigious thing.  I have never figured out why. I had known the Panko's daughter, Frances, when she attended grade twelve in the same class as I in Dauphin.  She was at home waiting to get in for training as a registered nurse.  A younger sister, Anne, was attending normal school in Dauphin.

 

The Panko's were a close-knit family, hard-working and God-loving.  Everyone went to church on Sunday, by wagon in summer and by sleigh or caboose in winter. 

 

The caboose, a popular conveyance in winter, was a light sleigh fitted with a canvas-covered roof and sides and a little box-stove inside with a pipe sticking through the roof.  An armful of wood for the box-stove and you had a fire going all the way to town or church. 

 

Because I was the teacher, and because Ukrainians at that time practically revered a teacher, I wasn't allowed to eat at the kitchen table with the family.  My meals were served in the dining room, the largest room in the house, often with a white table cloth on the table.  There I ate my supper in a solitary state listening to the banter and laughter in the kitchen wishing I was there. 

 

For such accommodation, I paid ten dollars a month.  During the months of Christmas and Easter holiays, I paid only eight dollars since I would be away for a week.

 

My bedroom upstairs, I shared with Frances.  We were lucky because the pipe from the kitchen stove downstairs came through the floor of our bedroom and fitted into the chimney.  So our room was the warmest in the house.

 

Of course, there was no such thing as a furnace, so the fires would go out during the night and the mornings could be quite cold.  But, under our perena (feather-tick filled with duck and goose feathers) it was cozy.  Even if one had to wander out to the outdoor toilet, situated across the yard understandably, it was nice to get back into that comfortable bed.  I'm sure I must have been given that warm room because I was the teacher. 

 

...

 

All baking was done at home with dozens of large, crusty loaves of bread and homemade buns.  I've never eaten cinnamon buns as good as Frances Panko's and her mother's, turned out regularly.  They spread the baking pans with plenty of homemade butter, then sprinkled brown sugar liberally.  The buns were cut and placed in the butter-sugar mixture.  During the baking, the brown sugar melted, forming a delicious glaze on the bottom.  These were a family favourite as well as my own.

 

...

 

The River Bend school, a frame structure on a surface foundation, had certainly not been designed for warmth or comfort.  Some vivid memories of those winter days remain.  Opening the door on a very cold morning to find skiffs of snow across the schoolroom floor.  A storm blowing during the night had forced snow through the cracks in the outer walls and around the window ledges.  Nowadays, such a building would be considered uninhabitable.  But then, getting an education, even a rudimentary one, was sufficient cause to endure much discomfort.

 

And we worked out ways to alleviate the cold.  We'd move as many desks as we could fit as close to the stove as possible.  Since the desks were fastened to wooden crossboard, three or four desks together, this wasn't easy to do.  But we spent many winter mornings huddling close to that source of heat and carrying on our lessons. 

 

Often, I'd have the kids run around the classroom to get their circulation working or we'd do some exercises near the stove, anything to warm up.  Lots of phys. ed. that winter.

 

Most of the children walked to school, even in the coldest weather, the farthest family coming four miles.  They would come in, faces wrapped in big, woolen scarves, with hoarfrost around their heads where the warm breath had struck the cold air.

 

Sometimes, cheeks, hands or feet would be frostbitten and we would use snow to rub the affected spots.  It was only much later that I discovered that this was the wrong thing to do. 

 

My landlord [John Panko] was a kindhearted man and, when the temperature dropped to -25 degrees Fahrenheit, he would tell Peter, the oldest son, to hitch a team to the cutter (a light sleigh), and drive us to school.  A real luxury. 

 

But, many mornings I'd be very cold walking to school.  Even thinking about it 50 years later, I can still feel the cold.

 

I suppose that's why, even today, I can't take for granted a warm furnace or electric heated school or home. 

 

To top it off, our primitive toilet facilities were located a good 100 yards from the school and getting there through the deep snow all winter was a hazardous undertaking.  The two little wooden structures, one for boys and one for girls, would get half-filled with snow and the doors could not be closed all winter. 

 

Some of the little kids would be reluctant to try the snow packed track to the toilet, so an older one would have to go along to help, often a brother or a sister.  There was no problem with loitering, the weather being what it was.

 

...

 

Equipment sometimes depended on the interests of the local board members.  In River Bend, although other supplies were minimal, there was an excellent supply of science equipment, even some not required until high school.  It was great for the older kids, because they could perform every experiment outlined in the science course.  Not every school went so hog wild on science. 

 

What we called our "library" was made up of many old, well-read and dog-eared books and, since the allotment for new books each year was quite small, twenty dollars in fact, these were looked forward to and much appreciated.