The Chatfield School District was formed on 11 March 1912 in the later-disorganized Rural Municipality of Chatfield. A wood frame, one-room schoolhouse was built on the southwest corner of SE2-21-1W in what is now the Rural Municipality of Armstrong. The District consisted of Sections 1-5 and 8-12 from Township 21 of Range West 1, and Sections 20-29 and 32-36 from Township 20 of Range West 1. It was reorganized into the Armstrong Municipal School District No. 1842 in May 1936, which became part of the Lakeshore School Division in 1967. The school closed around 1962. Records for the school are held at the Chatfield Museum. Only some metal artifacts and a buried sewage tank remained at the former school site at a May 2015 visit.
Among the teachers who worked at Chatfield School through the years were Joseph K. Lamb (?-?), Nellie Taylor (1918-1919), Kathleen Paterson (1919), Edna Matheson (1920), Gary B. Stevens (1920), G. E. Mathews (1921), M. P. Lutak (1921-1922), Noble H. Shaw (1922), William Hasselfield (1923), John A. Mazur (1923), Mrs. E. Dixon [Discon] (1924-1925), Harry Blair (1925), John W. Arnston (1926), Laura Kathleen Courtney (1926), John Roscoe (1927), Maxim C. Chawrink (1928), Elias Wachna (1928), Helen L. Lubiniecki (1929), Goldie Kepman (1930), M. Louise Cecil Flanagan (1930), Wanda L. Negrych (1930-1931), B. Willis (1931-1932), Thomas Bell (1932-1935), Patty Zarosinsky (1936-1937), Margaret Eleanor Ashley (1937-1938), Anne Gertrude Werstiuk (1938-1939), Eva Singer (1940-1941), Mary John Holocoka (1944-1945), Evelyn Hilda Sellgren (1943-1944), Anne Grace Kowalchuk (1944-1945), Natalie Bailley (1946-1947), Arthur Walter Danyluk (1947-1948), Verna Elizabeth Robichuk (1948-1949), Stella Mary Halayko (1949-1950), Helen Mary Shutiak (1950-1951), Mary Goy (1951-1952), John Piszak (1953-1954), Katherine Klowak (1953-1954), William Alexander Knihinicki (1954-1955), Steven L. Banera (1955-1956), Norris Gerald Pawlychka (1956-1957), Adeline Sitarz (1957-1958), Peter Emile Rybuck (1958-1960), Gloria Anne Ledochowski (1960-1961), Peter Mikolayenko (1961-1962), and Helen Louise Franckiewicz.
Site of the former Chatfield School building (May 2015)
Source: Gordon GoldsboroughSite Coordinates (lat/long): N50.77315, W97.50107
denoted by symbol on the map above
Manitoba School Records Collection (GR11220), Chatfield School District No 1610 / Armstrong School District No. 1842, Archives of Manitoba.
School Formation File, Chatfield School District No. 1610, Archives of Manitoba.
School Formation File, Armstrong Municipal School District No. 1842, Archives of Manitoba.
One Hundred Years in the History of the Rural Schools of Manitoba: Their Formation, Reorganization and Dissolution (1871-1971) by Mary B. Perfect, MEd thesis, University of Manitoba, April 1978.
A Study of Public School Buildings in Manitoba by David Butterfield, Historic Resources Branch, Manitoba Department of Culture, Heritage and Tourism, 1994, 230 pages.
Obituary [Peter Emile Rybuck], Winnipeg Free Press, 28 March 2020.
This page was prepared by Nathan Kramer and Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 28 March 2020
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