The Colonsay School District was established in July 1921 and a one-room schoolhouse operated at SW7-19-25W in what is now the Municipality of Rossburn. The school was closed from 1940 to 1944 then reopened until it closed permanently in 1960. The district was dissolved in 1967 and its area was divided between the Rossburn Consolidated School District and the Foxwarren Consolidated School District. It later became part of the Pelly Trail School Division. The former school building was still standing as of 1989 but appeared to be gone by 2005.
The teachers of Colonsay School included Marion McKee (1922-1925), Zelma Peden (1925-1926), Dorothy Mitchell (1926-1929), Edna Gallop (1929-1930), Marion Barton (1930-1931), Vida McDonald (1931-1932), Hazel Cochrane (1931-1932), Betty LePage (1933-1935), Anne Campbell (1935-1938), Gladys Dunkin (1938-1940), Rose Drozda (1944-1945), Fern Lock (1944-1945), Nydia Wonitoway (1946-1947), Charles Buchanan (1947-1948), Lloyd Slymka (1948), Helen Chobatiuk (1948), Betty Jakeman (1948), Eugenia Pawluk (1948-1952), Catherine Ament (1952, 1953-1955), Enid Butler (1952-1953), Ellen Carscadden (1955-1956), Mrs. Ament (1956-1957), James Norrie (1956-1957), and Gladys Berney (1957-1960).
Colonsay School (no date) by G. W. Bartlett
Source: Archives of Manitoba, School Inspectors Photographs,
GR8461, A0233, C131-3, page 90.Site Coordinates (lat/long): N50.60969, W100.94588
denoted by symbol on the map above
See also:
Historic Sites of Manitoba: Silver Creek Centennial Monument (Angusville, RM of Riding Mountain West)
Historic Sites of Manitoba: Rossburn Centenary Monument (Municipality of Rossburn)
Rossburn West topographic map, 62K/10 West, Edition 1, Series A743 [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.
On the Sunny Slopes of the Riding Mountains, A History of Rossburn and District, Volume 1 by Rossburn History Club, 1984. [Manitoba Legislative Library, F5648.R78 Ont]
The Fox’s Tale: The History of Foxwarren and the Consolidated School District #525 by Foxwarren and District History Book Committee, 1989, pages 65-67.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 1 April 2021
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