Historic Sites of Manitoba: Pearce School No. 1981 (Municipality of Pembina)

The Pearce School District was organized in June 1919. The following year, a one-room schoolhouse was constructed at SE12-2-7W in the Rural Municipality of Pembina. It closed in July 1965 and its catchment area became part of the Morden Consolidated School District and later the Western School Division.

Among the teachers of Pearce School were Miss M. A. Godkin (1920), Miss Kathleen Walmsley (1920-1922), Miss E. G. Nichols (1922-1923), Miss E. F. Hammond (1922-1923), Miss Margaret Pearce (1923-1924), Miss Edith M. Dow (1923-1924), Miss Evelyn Doak (1924-1926), Miss Isabel Milne (1926-1927), Miss L. Reichert (1927-1928), Miss Martha Aspevig (1928-1930), Miss Evelyn Waldon (1930-1933), J. C. Hinds (1933-1934), Miss Evelyn Spangelo (1933-1934), Miss Hazel Frazer (1934-1935), Miss Isabel Milne (1935-1939), Miss Verna Arnott (1939-1941), Miss Annie C. Pyziak (1941-1943), Miss Zelly Hammond (1943-1944), Miss Ruth Rothenburger (1944-1945), Miss Eileen Dudgeon (1945-1953), Miss Doreen Shapansky (1953-1954), Miss Ella Wieler (1954-1955), B. Berg (1954-1955), Miss Helen Moore (1955-1957), Miss Ella Shiskosky (1957-1958), Miss Marion May (1958-1959), Miss Marjorie Albrecht (1959-1961), Miss Betty Janzen (1961-1962), Miss Doreen Vassart (1962-1964), and Bert Friesen (1964-1965).

In September 2015, the former schoolhouse was destroyed as a training exercise for local firefighters.

Pearce School (no date) by G. G. Neufeld Source: Archives of Manitoba, School Inspectors Photographs, GR8461, A0233, C131-3, page 71. The former Pearce School building (circa 1986) Source: Historic Resources Branch, Public School Buildings Inventory, slide 980. The former Pearce School building (October 2010) Source: Gordon Goldsborough Interior of the former Pearce School building (September 2015) Source: Patrick Thiessen Interior of the former Pearce School building (September 2015) Source: Patrick Thiessen Destruction of the former Pearce School building (September 2015) Source: Patrick Thiessen Pearce School commemorative monument (October 2010) Source: Gordon Goldsborough Site Coordinates (lat/long): N49.10395, W98.26824 denoted by symbol on the map above

Sources:

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.

The Darlingford Saga II: 1870-1970, 1970-1999 by the Darlingford Centennial Book Committee, 1999, page 159.

We thank Patrick Thiessen and Brian Rex for providing additional information used here.

This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.

Page revised: 6 February 2023

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