A one-room brick schoolhouse near Highway 312 between Hepburn and Waldheim holds a century’s worth of fond memories for former students and teachers.
Parker School still stands on its original location about a mile east of the highway. On a clear day, it stands out like a little beacon of the past.
The first day of classes in the school was September 27, 1920. The last class was in June, 1959. The school closed permanently in 1966.
Unlike most one-room schoolhouses that once dotted the Saskatchewan prairie, this one is stubbornly refusing to disappear.
“It’s actually pretty amazing that the building has survived as long as it has, and is in relatively sound condition for its age,” said Don Rice, a Saskatoon resident who is hoping to generate interest in restoring Parker School and having it designated a municipal heritage site. “It’s been empty since the late 1950s; that’s more than 60 years. But it was so well-built that it’s stood the ravages of time.
“Obviously, it needs a lot of work, particularly the roof shingles and one corner of the building where the masonry has cracked. But it’s not too late to save it, if there’s enough interest among area residents.”
A celebration marking the 100-year anniversary of the first day of classes at the school was held September 27, 2020. About two dozen people turned out for the ceremony. Iona Greene of Waldheim and other volunteers helped organize the event.
“I was amazed to see as many people out as we had,” said Rice. “We were limited to what we could do because of the COVID-19 health regulations, but it still turned out way better than we envisioned. It was very special for the people who came, because they all have some connection to the school in some way.”
Rice said anyone interested in volunteering to help restore the school can contact him at 306-880-2292 or by email at donwrice@shaw.ca. A social media site is online at https://www.facebook.com/ParkerSchool/.
Rice said he became interested in the school while researching his family history. His grandmother, Annie Straus (later Annie Wiebe after she married), was the first teacher at the school from 1920 to 1922.
“My grandma started teaching in 1919,” said Rice. “Parker School was her third school. It was still being built at the beginning of September, 1920, so they held classes in a little shack at the back of the property for the first three weeks while the school was being finished.”
Ninety-two-year-old Bertha Thiessen of Waldheim remembers the iconic brick building very well. Not only did she attend Parker School starting in Grade 1, but she later taught there during the 1940s and 1950s.
“It was my first school after I graduated with my teaching certificate from Normal School in Saskatoon when I was 18 years old,” said Thiessen. “That was in 1947. The teacher shortage was so bad that they sent us out the minute we graduated.”
Thiessen said she was happy to land a teaching job close to home where she could live with her parents. She already had a taste of teaching in a country school during her year at Normal School the previous winter.
“It was way out in the Mayfair-Alticane area,” she said. “It was all Ukrainian farm families and even the kids hardly spoke any English. It was the first time I had been away from home, and it was a real learning experience.
“I was happy to live at home. I had a little ‘after-thought’ brother who was just starting Grade 1, and I was his teacher. He didn’t think he had to listen to me in class because I was his sister, but Mom and I set him straight before the year was out.”
Thiessen said she also has many fond memories of her years as a student at the school. Among the highlights was in 1939, when all the students were loaded into the back of a farm truck for a journey to Saskatoon to see King George VI and Queen Elizabeth as they made their royal tour across the country.
Thiessen later wrote a book about her teaching experiences, and also contributed a short history about Parker School in the Waldheim Community History Book.
Ray Peters of Rosthern, Thiessen’s brother, also recalls happy days as a student at the school.
“I started in Grade 1 in 1936,” said Peters. “I graduated from Grade 8 there. That was as high as you could go. “
Peters said his earliest memory of the school was the year before he actually started.
“I was five years old, and I had a couple older sisters who were already in school,” said Peters. “I went with them one day to see what school was all about.
“I guess I fidgeted a little too much, because the teacher pulled my ear, and said, ‘sonny, you have to sit still.’ After that I always behaved because I was a bit scared of the teacher.”
Peters said he recalls not only the classes, but the outdoor sports including ball games against neighbouring schools, concerts and other social events at the school. It was, he confirmed a community gathering spot.
Peters served several years as secretary-treasurer of the Parker School district before the school closed and students were bussed to Hepburn and Waldheim. He said he would like to see the building designated a heritage site.
“It’s one of the last one of its kind still standing,” said Peters. “The outside is still in pretty good shape, although it still has a crack near one window that I remember was there when I was a kid. I think it’s worth preserving.”
Thiessen agrees the building is an important part of the district’s history.
“There are so many good memories for so many people there,” she said. “I know I have lots. My mother went to school there, My siblings and I went to school there, and I taught there. It helped shape me as a person.”