The Squirrel Creek School District was organized in February 1879. The first teacher, James Hanna, was hired in 1881 and classes were held in a Presbyterian/Methodist log church situated 50 feet south of Katrime Cemetery across the road. The first school building was constructed by voluntary labour using logs sawn at a local mill. A new school was constructed in 1891 in the southwest quarter of 10-13-10 west of the Principal Meridian, in is now the Municipality of WestLake-Gladstone. The original building was then used as a barn. The building was replaced in 1950. The school closed in January 1965 when it and other rural districts consolidated with MacGregor Consolidated School No. 2434. A monument at the site, erected on 8 July 1990, is dedicated to the pioneers, students and teachers of Squirrel Creek School District. A commemorative plaque for the school is at Katrime Cemetery.
Among the teachers of Squirrel Creek School were William J. Sisler (1893, 1896-1898), Evelyn Dawn (1906), Margaret H. Welsh (1907), E. R. Armstrong (1907-1908), Margaret Madill (1908-1910), Ruby McDonald (1910-1911), Jessie Craig (1911-1912), M. Hadden (1912-1913), H. L. Kendrick (1913-1914), Eva A. Ferguson (1914), H. M. Quail (1914-1915), Bertha A. Street (1915-1918), Margaret Hunter (1918-1919), Gladys Thompson (1919-1921), Ida Margaret Ash (1921), Kathleen M. Owens (1922-1923), Mabel A. Hutchison (1923-1927), Dorothy Eugenie North (1927-1928), Lena Isabella Wilson (1929), Laura Margaret Lemon (1930-1935), Edith Winnifred Fox (1935-1938), Evelyn Elizabeth Philip (1938-1939), Olive Mary Smith (1939-1941), Marion Evelyn Jean Blair (1941-1942), Myrtle Patsack (1942), Irene Elspeth Montgomery (1943-1944), Margaret Jean Ziegler (1944-1945), Louise Roberta Collier (1945-1947), Dawn Jean Keeling (1947-1948), Douglas Fred Patterson (1948-1949), Herman Enns (1950), Vivian Anne Telford (1950-1951), Dorothy Jean Chambers (1951-1952), Inez Evangeline Bray (1952-1953), Betty Lois Jones (1953-1954), Marie Merron McLennan (1954-1956), Della Isabel McIntosh (1956-1957), Ella Mae Johnér (1957-1958), Margaret Ada Lawrence (1958-1959), Enid Carole Sigurjonsson (1959-1960), Vera Gwendolyn Clark (1960-1961), Olga Finkewich (1961-1963), and Mary Ruth Beaudin (1963-1965).
Squirrel Creek School (no date)
Source: Archives of Manitoba, School Inspectors Photographs,
GR8461, A0233, C131-1, page 31.
Squirrel Creek School commemorative monument (September 2010)
Source: Gordon GoldsboroughSite Coordinates (lat/long): N50.08290, W98.76678
denoted by symbol on the map above
Annual Reports of the Manitoba Department of Education, Manitoba Legislative Library.
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 (GR2051), Squirrel Creek School District No. 76 Daily Registers, Archives of Manitoba.
We thank Jim Mochoruk for providing additional information used here.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough and Nathan Kramer.
Page revised: 18 February 2021
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