Established formally in March 1911 as Fisher River School, a one-room frame building was located in the northwest quarter of 25-24-3 west of the Principal Meridian, in the Rural Municipality of Fisher. Classes began in August 1913 with W. F. Neil, a local settler, as its first teacher. He taught grades 1 to 8 and had an annual salary of $500. It was renamed as Maidstone School around the summer of 1927.
In 1964, the original building was replaced by the present structure, which closed three years later, in April 1967. Its remaining students were bused to a school in nearby Fisher Branch. A monument near the second school building is dedicated to the pioneers, teacher, and students of the district.
Among the teachers of Fisher River School / Maidstone School were W. F. Neil (1913-?), ? (?-1915), T. Tozer (Fall 1915), Elice Gudmundsson (Spring 1916 - Spring 1917), Jennie Shields (September 1917 - April 1918), Florence Enright (May 1918 - September 1919), Alfred Shaw (October 1919 - June 1929), Rose Tow (Fall 1919 - Spring 1920), Edith L. Hill (July-September 1920), Edward Johnson (October-December 1920), Miriam McNabb (March-April 1921), Eva Calverley (May-September 1921), Murray H. Dodd (October-December 1921), Hattie M. Dunphy (January-June 1922), Leila Stephenson (August 1922 - February 1923), Freda MacInnis (March-June 1923), ? (Fall 1923), Mina Skaftfete? (Spring 1924), Margaret Alcock (1924-1925), Jean E. Bie (1925-1926), Katherine McLeod Marr (1926-1927), Saramay Armstrong (1927-1929), Violet May Bell (1929-1932), Evelyn Gertrude Selden (1932-1934), Maria Harriet Rowley (1934-1938), Mildred E. Dowd (1938), Birdie Elizabeth Colvin (1938-1940), Olavia Palsson (1940-1941), Kathleen Aubrey Reed (1941), Ethel W. Bailey (1942), Kathleen Smith (1942), ? (1942-1943), Bernice Agnes Lockhead (1943-1944), Mary J. Halowka (1944-1945, 1946-1953), Isabel Anne Cheyne (1945-1946), Leah Bourk (1954), Jean M. Williamson (1954), Olga Hnatiuk (1954), Lena Embryk (1954), Marie Uhryniuk (1955), Nestor Holod (1955-1956), David Loewen (1956-1958), Lula Squire (1958-1960), Leo T. Ennis (1960), Eugenie McIvor (1960-1961, 1965-1968), Josephine Gorchynski (1961-1963), and Edward Husack (1963-1965).
The original Maidstone School (no date) by M. Hall-Jones
Source: Archives of Manitoba, School Inspectors Photographs,
GR8461, A0233, C131-2, page 138.
The original Maidstone School building (no date)
Source: Lynn Jones
The second Maidstone School building (May 2011)
Source: Gordon Goldsborough
Maidstone School commemorative monument (May 2011)
Source: Gordon GoldsboroughSite Coordinates (lat/long): N51.11172, W97.76644
denoted by symbol on the map above
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.
Manitoba School Records Collection, Fisher River School District No. 1555 Daily Registers, GR11220, Archives of Manitoba.
Manitoba School Records Collection, Maidstone School District No. 1555 Daily Registers, GR11220, Archives of Manitoba.
We thank Lynn Jones and Bryan Page for providing additional information used here.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough and Nathan Kramer.
Page revised: 8 January 2024
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