The Mount Pleasant School District was established formally in February 1878 in the Rural Municipality of Portage la Prairie. At first, classes were held in the home of a Mr. McBain until a schoolhouse could be constructed at SW5-12-7W. In 1879, a log building opened for classes by forty students under the supervision of teacher Christina Fraser, paid the sum of $160 for a six-month period. By 1893, the building was no longer adequate in size or centrally located for the majority of students, so a new school building was constructed at SE5-12-7W. By 1913, however, student enrollment had declined sufficiently that the school was closed until 1921 when it reopened. Another building, known later as the “North School,” was constructed in 1953 with Lillian Beddome as teacher. It closed by 1969 and the building was torn down.
Population growth along the Assiniboine River and the west end of Portage la Prairie resulted in demand for more school space so, in 1961, the school trustees purchased the now-closed Image Creek schoolhouse and moved it to a site donated by Francis Ogletree, naming it South Mount Pleasant School. After the schools closed around 1969, the building was renovted into a private residence.
The teachers who worked at Mount Pleasant School through the years were Christina Fraser, Miss Heatherington, Mrs. Porteous, Mr. D. I. McGuinnis, Miss Sanderson, James Machessney, Miss Van Koughet, Miss Crooks, Miss Kerr, Miss Jones, Miss Morrison, Miss A. Campbell, Miss L. Wickware, Miss A. MacKenzie, Miss K. Fessendean, Miss Lynch, Miss K. Young, Miss Shafer, Miss A. Murdock, Miss Mary Bell, D. McVicar, William Gordon, Mr. A. McKinnon, Miss M. McKinnon, Miss Mabel Grobb, Miss A. Brydon, Cora Grobb, Miss Lindsay, Miss Hall, Miss Sexsmith, Miss Whimster, Miss Metcalfe, Miss Aileen Moore, Miss Ellis, Miss Brill, Jessie Porteous, Jean I. Sanderson, J. W. Baydon, Sarah I. Kerr, Dorothy Freed, Mrs. E. H. McMillan, Gladys Hicks, Mrs. Gladys McMillan, Mrs. Mildred Barber, Mrs. Audrey Tufford, Jean Jones, Lillian Beddome, Loreen Lund, Lolveig Sandven, Mrs. Joan Adam, Mrs. Mary Rutledge, Miss Marie Verwey, Miss Irene Blight, and Edith Dunsmore.
Teachers at South Mount Pleasant School included Miss Katie Enns, Mrs. Audrey Tufford, Miss Georgina Reichert, Mrs. Gail Cochrane, and Mrs. Anne Brown.
Mount Pleasant School (circa 1910)
Source: Archives of Manitoba, School Districts - Mount Pleasant.
Mount Pleasant School (no date) by A. B. Fallis
Source: Archives of Manitoba, School Inspectors Photographs,
GR8461, A0233, C131-1, page 17.Site Coordinates (lat/long): N49.97587, W98.37776
denoted by symbol on the map above
Cummin’s Rural Directory Map for Manitoba published by the Cummins Map Company, 404 Chambers of Commerce, Winnipeg, 1923. [Copies held by Edward M. Ledohowski and Gordon Goldsborough]
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.
Rural Schools of Portage la Prairie School Division #24 by Muriel Wright, 1996.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 31 August 2020
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