Historic Sites of Manitoba: Strathallan School No. 635 (Municipality of Boissevain-Morton)

The Strathallan School District was formally established March 1891, and a building was erected in the southeast quarter of 15-3-21 west of the Principal Meridian, in what is now the Municipality of Boissevain-Morton. It closed in May 1911 and students went to Waukeemo Consolidated School No. 766. The school reopened in April 1914 and operated until 1966. The original school building was replaced by a new one in 1945, which remains on the site. The district was formally dissolved in January 1968 and the building was used for a time as a church and youth centre by the Whitewater Mennonite congregation. A monument on the site was erected on 13 July 1991. The schoolhouse was demolished sometime after April 2016.

Among the teachers of Strathallan School were Clifford Hackworth (1891), E. McDonald, Maggie McDougall, Jane McShane, Will Theberg, May Ross, Emily Wright, Olive Oswald, Adella Cochrane, Elsie Law, Lena Rea, Mamie Springer, Gertie Fraser, Ethel Currie, Edith Brondgeest, Jean Paterson, Mary Dickson, Isabella Fargey, Jessie Rolston, Frances Armstrong, Eva Taylor, Ethel Emerson (1911-1915), Lorna Moore, Maud Parker, Una Bourque, B. McFarlane, Elizabeth Pottinger, Ann McConnell, Florence Taylor, Grace Andrew (1935), Mabel Kendall, Nora Sankey, Helen Drysdale, Annie Inglis, Freda Williams, Eunice Wood, Jean Coutts, Frank Dyck, Dorothy Fargey, Tina Wiens (1940s), Elnora Siemens, Tina Sawatsky, Freida Krahn, Betty Penner, Abe Siemens, Jessie Cornelson, Margaret Enns, Elfrieda Epp, Kay Kroeker (1954), Abe Martens, Elfreida Epp Dyck, Catherine Elias, Nellie Friesen, Kathleen Dyck, Helen Epp, Egon Enns

The original Strathallan School building (no date) by W. J. Parr Source: Archives of Manitoba, School Inspectors Photographs, GR8461, A0233, C131-1, page 100. The former Strathallan School building (circa 1986) Source: Historic Resources Branch, Public School Buildings Inventory, slide 760. The former Strathallan School building (August 2010) Source: Gordon Goldsborough The former Strathallan School building (April 2016) Source: Jean McManus Strathallan School commemorative monument (August 2010) Source: Gordon Goldsborough Strathallan School commemorative monument (May 2020) Source: Kathryn Hyndman Site Coordinates (lat/long): N49.20829, W100.21867 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.

Beckoning Hills Revisited: Ours is a Goodly Heritage, Morton-Boissevain, 1881-1981 by Boissevain History Committee, c1981, pages 181-184.

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

Strathallan School, Turtle Mountain-Souris Plains Heritage Association.

We thank Jean McManus, David Ford, Kathryn Hyndman, and Evelyn Balzer for providing additional information used here.

This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.

Page revised: 22 January 2021

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