Historic Sites of Manitoba: Gretna School No. 336 / Gretna Peace Bell (Gretna, Municipality of Rhineland)

Link to:
Principals | Vice-Principals | Teachers | Photos & Coordinates | Sources

The Gretna School District was created by the Rural Municipality of Douglas By-law No. 12 in August 1884. A one-room schoolhouse was built on SE5-1-1W in the rapidly developing urban settlement of Gretna on what later became Klassen Avenue. This was replaced in 1892 with a wooden building at the corner of 9th Street and Berlin Avenue designed by architect Hugh McCowan. It was replaced in 1911 by a solid brick structure on Montcalm Avenue designed by architect Eldred Dodsworth Tuttle and the school bell from the earlier building was transferred to it. The bell became part of a peace memorial monument at a ceremony on 11 November 1965. A plaque was added to the monument in 1967, in commemoration of the Canadian Confederation. The bell tower was restored in 2004. The school was replaced in 1957 by the structure across the street. The earlier school was used as a community centre for several years before being demolished.

The Gretna School District had always offered Grades 1 to 11 instruction but, in 1966, the Rhineland School Division opened W. C. Miller Collegiate in Altona for all high school students in the region. The school district became Gretna Consolidated School District in 1967 as a number of rural school districts with grades 1 to 8 joined Gretna, and by Order-in-Council it became part of the Rhineland School Division in 1971. Classrooms and a new gymnasium/auditorium were added as the School Division continued to use the school for Kindergarten to Grade 8 classes for students in the Gretna area.

Principals

Period	Principal
1885	William Symington (1827-1913)
1885-1889	Ambrose W. Stock
1890-1892	Daniel Armenius Wickware (1861-1917)
1893-1896	John S. Poole
1897	T. J. Smith
1898-1899	R. J. Cooke
1899-1904	Edward Howson Walker (1867-1927)
1904-1905	David Smith Tod (1870-1937)
1905	John H. Conklin
1905-1908	Norman Benson Tufts (1875-1921)
1908-1909	Thomas F. Elmes
1909-1912	William Martin
1912-1916	Joseph MacLennan
1916-1917	Alexander Russell
1917-1918	Wilfred Almon Rideout (1878-1949)
1918-1920	Benjamin Hodkinson (1864-1948)
1920-1922	George E. Walkof
1922-1924	Kate T. Forrest
1924-1925	Peter S. Buhr
1925-1929	Gerhard G. Neufeld (1884-1945)
1929-1942	Peter Brown (1896-1986)
1942-1949	Melbourne Walmsley
1949-1953	Douglas Gordon Pomeroy (1911-1968)
1953-1955	David Winter (1929-2013)
1955-1956	Joseph “Joe” [Szezygol] Shygol (c1928-1974)
1956-1959	John Dyck
1959-1965	Frank F. Enns
1965-1967	Joseph G. Plett
1967-?	John C. Braun

Teachers

Among the other teachers who worked at Gretna School were Calista Post (1892), Nellie R. Scott (1893-1896), Iara Scott (1893-1896), T. J. Smith (1896), Margaret Brown (1896-1897), Flora Whidden (1897), Sarah Scott (1898-1899), Edith E. Breen (1898), Carrie Yuill (1898), M. A. Godley (1898), Hilda Johnston (1898), Maude Mawhinney (1899-1901), Maude Davidson (1899), Roscoe Conklin (1899-1900), William J. McTavish (1899-1901), Alfred W. Garratt (1900-1901), Minnie J. Irving (1901-1902), W. A. McClelland (1901), Jean A. Gunn (1901), C. L. St. John (1902), E. M. Craig (1902), E. H. Walker (1905), Florence Nixon (1905-1907), Edith Carruthers (1905), Ludwig Erk (1905), Josephine G. Wahn (1905-1908, 1910-1911), Jacob Braun (1905-1906), Lena Gayton (1905-1906), Annie Krause (1907-1937), Mary Armstrong (1908), C. K. Rogers (1909), Bessie Hoffman (1909), Ruth C. Milton (1909-1910), Annie G. Milton (1911-1914), Agnes N. Hoon (1911), Stella G. Snelgrove (1911), Martha Krause (1912-1915), Helen Wilmot (1914-1918), Gladys Irving (1915-1919), Margaret Wahn (1917), Ella L. King (1919), Phyllis M. Rae (1919), E. S. Zenek (1920), Vera G. Cramm (1920-1921), Clarence Record (1920), Grace W. Graham (1921), Gladys E. Findlay (1921-1922), Alice Pieper (1921-1922), Frances Creighton (1922-1923), Mary Derksen (1923), Vivian Durden (1923-1924), Alma F. Hanna (1923), Margaret Vant (1924), Bethel Graham (1924-1926), Marie Klassen Wall (1924-1928), George E. Walkof (1922-1925), D. Windsor (1925), J. G. Feller (1926-1929), Helen Janzen (1928-1937, grades 3-5), Kathie Carstens (1929-1930), Doreen B. Handel (1930-1931), Albert O. Anderson (1931-1932), Thomas D. Anderson (1932-1937), Gus Pokrant, and Miss Drause.

Photos & Coordinates

The original Gretna School building (1884) Source: Peter Penner (Altona and District Heritage Research Centre) The second Gretna School building (1892) Source: Peter Penner (Altona and District Heritage Research Centre) Gretna School No. 336 (circa 1910) Source: Archives of Manitoba, School Inspectors Photographs, GR2664, C65. The third Gretna School building (1911) Source: Gordon Goldsborough, 2016-0006 Gretna Peace Bell on the site of the third Gretna School (January 2012) Source: Gordon Goldsborough Gretna Peace Bell on the site of the third Gretna School (July 2023) Source: Glen Toews The fourth Gretna School, built in 1957 (no date) Source: Peter Penner (Altona and District Heritage Research Centre) Site Coordinates (lat/long): N49.00687, W97.56590 denoted by symbol on the map above

See also:

Historic Sites of Manitoba: Mennonite Collegiate Institute (Gretna, Municipality of Rhineland)

Sources:

“The Indian famine fund,” Winnipeg Tribune, 4 March 1897, page 4.

“Tenders,” Manitoba Free Press, 2 May 1911, page 2.

Annual Reports of the Manitoba Department of Education, Manitoba Legislative Library.

“Gretna, Man.,” Western Canada Fire Underwriters’ Association map, March 1912, Archives of Manitoba.

Black & Gold, Gretna School, 1937. [Legislative Library of Manitoba, F5649.G74 Gre]

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.

We thank Al Schmidt (Altona and District Heritage Research Centre), Peter Penner, Nathan Kramer, Marie Dueck, and Glen Toews for providing additional information used here.

This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.

Page revised: 15 July 2023