The Willowview School District was established in April 1912 and, in 1914, a one-room schoolhouse was constructed at SW7-20-1W in the Rural Municipality of Armstrong. It opened for classes in August 1914 with 14 students. In 1936, the district was dissolved and its area became part of the Armstrong Municipal School District No. 1842. No vestige of the former school remains at the site, immediately north of the Willowview Cemetery. Attendance and other records for the school are held at the Chatfield Park of Souvenirs Museum.
Among the teachers of Willowview School were Susette McMeekin, Katherine Briggs, T. Douglas McMeekin, Ada Milne (1917), Frederick Morgan (1922-1923), Margaret E. Ross (1924-1925), Florence Annie Guthrie (1929-1931), William George Cooper (1931-1934), Gertrude Schwartz (1935-1936), Steven Banera (1949-1950), and Helen Skrabek (late 1950s).
Willowview School (no date) by M. Hall-Jones
Source: Archives of Manitoba, School Inspectors Photographs,
GR8461, A0233, C131-3, page 3.Site Coordinates (lat/long): N50.70590, W97.60130
denoted by symbol on the map above
Narcisse topographic map, 62I/12, Edition 1, Series A743 [Archives of Manitoba].
School District Formation Files [Armstrong Municipal School District No. 1842], GR1688, E0027, Archives of Manitoba.
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.
Wilderness to Wildlife: Chatfield and District History by Chatfield Oldtimers Club, c1981. [Manitoba Legislative Library, F5648.C45 Wil]
Manitoba School Records Collection, Willow View School District #1616 Daily Registers, GR11220, Archives of Manitoba.
We thank Cathie Morgan Matula for providing additional information used here.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough and Nathan Kramer.
Page revised: 14 May 2023
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