The first school in this area opened about 1880 in a log house owned by early settler Peter Graham. Union School was opened in 1883, in a building on the northeast corner of 30-14-14 west of the Principal Meridian, in the Rural Municipality of Langford. A new building replaced it in 1950, erected at a cost of $10,000 on two acres of land west of the original site. It featured a stage, a full basement, kitchen, toilets, and a recreation room. Student enrollment gradually dropped until, in 1967, there were only eight left. A meeting of ratepayers approved unanimously the closure of the school. Remaining students were bused to Neepawa School No. 126. The building was sold to the local Alcoholics Anonymous chapter.
The teachers of Union School were Miss Shafer (1883), Kate McRae (1884), Margaret Robb, Willet Van Blaricom, George Heslop, Miss Nesbett, Nettie Findlay, Lucy Coburn, Ada Lynch, John Pidington, Mary Ganton, Frances F. Smith (1897), Margaret Boyne, Esther Wemyss, C. J. Dalyiel, Jean Urquhart, Eva Hamilton, William Speers, Miss Holmes, Kate Drysdale, Leslie Hamilton, Ethel Ducklow, Winnie Thompson, Lizzie Young, Grace Caswell, Elsie Ritchey, Lily Rutledge (1915-1916), Jean Brydon (1916-1917), Etta Gee (1917-1918), Mary A. Carscadden (1919-1921), Annie M. Grant (1921), Margaret Mitchell (1922), E. Pearl Walker (1922-1923), Alice Thring (1923-1925), Edna Robertson (1925-1927), George Owens (1927-1928), Barbara McKenzie (1928-1930), Louise Switzer (1930-1934), Wilbur N. Fee (1934-1935), Verla Kilburn (1935-1939), Olive Smith (1939), Mabel Hunt (1939-1942), Blanche Johannson (1943), Muriel Brugger (1943-1945), Mabel Mossop (1945), Connie Connell (1945-1946), Alice Patterson (1946-1947), Anita Cox (1947-1949), Gloria Ward (1949), Sybil Drysdale (1950), Audrey Simon (1950-1960), Betty McFarlane Anderson (1960-1963), Cathy Gray (1963), Harvey L. Walker (1963-1964), Evelyn Pollock (1964-1966), and Elaine Clark (1966-1967).
The original Union School building (circa 1933)
Source: Education Department Report, 1933, Manitoba Legislative Library.
The original Union School building (circa 1933)
Source: Education Department Report, 1933, Manitoba Legislative Library.
The original Union School building (no date) by W. C. Hartley
Source: Archives of Manitoba, School Inspectors Photographs,
GR8461, A0233, C131-1, page 16.
The second Union School building (circa 1990)
Source: Historic Resources Branch, Public School Buildings Inventory, slide 551.
Site Coordinates (lat/long): N50.22488, W99.36477
denoted by symbol on the map above
“The Indian famine fund,” Winnipeg Tribune, 4 March 1897, page 4.
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.
First Century of Langford, 1891-1991 by Langford Centennial History Committee, 1990, pages 65-68.
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 Beautiful Plains Story: 1983-2008 by Neepawa and Area History Committee, 2008, page 159.
We thank Malcolm Bell for providing additional information used here.
This page was prepared by Allan Drysdale and Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 31 January 2021
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