Historic Sites of Manitoba: Routledge Union School No. 818 (Routledge, RM of Sifton)

The Routledge Union School District was established in June 1894 and a wood frame school building operated at Routledge (NW34-9-25W) in the Rural Municipality of Sifton. The school closed in 1965 and the district was dissolved as students from this area went to Virden Consolidated School No. 144. The former school building was used for a time as a community centre and later as a private residence.

Among the teachers of Routledge School were Alpha Bellamy (1895), Jessie Cameron (1896), Anna Keroach (1896-1897), Regina Blais (1898-1899), Minnie Tate Ford (1906-1907), Agnes Scott (1910s), Lillian Gertrude Balderston (1935-1935), Mary Elizabeth Gardiner (1945-1947), Marion Watson (1947-1948), Ellen Mae Andrew (1948-1949), Margaret Louise Schoen (1949-1950), Sarah Bessie Mongtomery (1950-1956), Olda Marie Beier (1956-1957), Dora Stewart (1958-1960), and Ed Sloychuk (1965).

Routledge Union School (no date) by W. R. Beveridge Source: Archives of Manitoba, School Inspectors Photographs, GR8461, A0233, C131-2, page 5. The former Routledge Union School building (circa 1986) Source: Historic Resources Branch, Public School Buildings Inventory, slide 1237. The former Routledge Union School building (May 2013) Source: Gordon Goldsborough Site Coordinates (lat/long): N49.79107, W100.79947 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.

Ox Trails to Blacktop by Oak Lake History Committee, 1982, Manitoba Legislative Library, F 5649.O23 Oxt.

Manitoba School Records Collection, Routledge School No. 818 Daily Registers, GR0466, Archives of Manitoba.

Obituary [Mrs. John Wiggins], Miniota Herald, 21 August 1969, page 4.

A Study of Public School Buildings in Manitoba by David Butterfield, Historic Resources Branch, Manitoba Department of Culture, Heritage and Tourism, 1994, 230 pages.

We thank Nathan Kramer and Mark Tennant for providing additional information used here.

This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.

Page revised: 5 May 2021

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