Historic Sites of Manitoba: Woodnorth Consolidated School No. 1533 (Woodnorth, RM of Pipestone)

Link to:
Principals | Vice-Principals | Teachers | Photos & Coordinates | Sources

The Woodnorth School District was established formally in April 1910, with a one-room frame schoolhouse constructed in Woodnorth, in the Rural Municipality of Pipestone. In May 1918, it became Woodnorth Consolidated School No. 1533 when it consolidated with Daybreak School No. 376 and Retloc School No. 1908.

As student enrollment rose, the original classroom was supplemented by two more so, by the time the school was in its heyday, it comprised three classrooms. During the 1960s, with the closure of rural schools in the surrounding area, Mayville School No. 375 and Elm Valley School No. 869, their students were sent to Woodnorth. The school closed in 1968 and the district was dissolved in 1970. A commemorative monument was erected in 1995 beside the former school building, which was stripped of its brick veneer in 1990.

Principals

Period	Principal
1918-1919	Miss P. G. Davis
1919-1920	Ada Pauline Herkes (1895-?)
1920-1926	William Stanley “Bill” Lockhart (1896-1978)
1926-1927	James B. “Jim” Smalley (1898-1990)
1927-1929	Joseph Edwin Murphy (1897-1973)
1929-1931	John Samuell Dickison (1906-1995)
1931-1933	James Cameron Martin (1910-1982)
1933-1936	Beulah Beryl McNevin (1896-1963)
1936-1937	Frederick Adam Hodgkinson (1912-2004)
1937	Charles Griggs
1938-1939	Oliver Clayton Bricker (1900-1992)
1939-1941	Arthur Neilson (1908-1975)
1941-1942	Miss Campbell
1942-1944	Jessie M. Hannah
1944-1945	Katherine Isabella “Kay” Smith (1922-2011)
1945-1946	Gladys C. McLean
1946-1947	George Wesley Denstedt (1896-1979)
1947-1948	Gladys Webster
1948-1951	Mrs. Julia Johnson
1951-1953	Bohdan “Bud” Danylchuk (1926-2019)
1953-1954	Alma Elaine [Eileen] Newton Carnochan (1922-2011)
1954-1955	Clayton W. Allen
1955-1956	Victor Boldt
1956-1962	Dalton J. Burke
1962-1967	?
1967-1968	Mrs. Mildred Harkness

Teachers

Among the other teachers at Woodnorth School were Miss Hanna Jean Haw (1910-1911), Montague Shore (1911-1912), Miss Mary Jordan (1912-1914), Miss E. G. Martin (1914-1916), Miss Mary Muir (1916-1917), Miss L. Inkster (1918), Miss R. Rosenblat (1918-1919), Miss Lang (1919), Miss Christie (1920), Miss E. E. McPhaden (1920), Miss H. Bray (1921-1922), Miss G. I. Gibson (1923), Miss Jeanette Turnbull (1924), Miss Sarah Ellen Cook (1924-1927), Miss I. E. Blakeman (1924-1925), Miss S. E. Blakeman (1924), Miss L. Mummery (1925-1926), Miss A. E. Dafoe (1926-1927), Miss D. E. North (1927), Miss Rae Bulloch (1927-1928), Miss E. Wilkins (1927-1928), Miss A. J. Reid (1928-1930), Miss H. Sheriden (1928-1931), Miss Kay Moore (1931-1933), Miss Mary Evelyn Greenway (1931-1933), D. J. Duncan (1933-1934), Miss E. Hanley (1934-1936), Miss Della Shoemaker (1936-1939), A. Hall (1939-1941), Miss Smith (1941-1942), O. Perlette (1942-1943), B. McAuley (1942-1943), Miss J. Campbell (1943), E. Wilson (1944), MIss Gladys C. McLean (1944-1945), Mrs. R. Caulfield (1944-1945), Miss Constance Halliday (1945-1946), Nancy Pittendreigh Gardiner (1946-1948), Miss Doreen Blackmore (1948-1949), Miss Pat Dybish (1949-1951), Mrs. Flora Danylchuk (1951-1953), Miss Yvonne Loiselle (1952-1953), Miss Viola Hill (1953-1963), Miss Olga Mazur (1953-1955), Miss Mary Van Den Bossche (1955-1956), Miss Heather Anderson (1956-1959), Miss Joan Wyllie (1959-1960), Miss Bertha Kramer (1960-1961), Marc Chisholm (1961-1962), and Miss Sylvia Cuthbert (1967-1968).

Photos & Coordinates

The original Woodnorth School (no date) by W. R. Beveridge Source: Archives of Manitoba, School Inspectors Photographs, GR8461, A0233, C131-2, page 135. Woodnorth School (no date) Source: Pamela Forsyth The former Woodnorth School building (circa 1986) Source: Historic Resources Branch, Public School Buildings Inventory, slide 1036. Front exterior of the former Woodnorth School building, with brick veneer removed (October 2011) Source: Gordon Goldsborough Rear exterior of the former Woodnorth School building showing the original classroom (October 2011) Source: Gordon Goldsborough Front exterior of the former Woodnorth School building (September 2020) Source: George Penner Interior of the original Woodnorth School classroom (October 2011) Source: Gordon Goldsborough Woodnorth School commemorative monument (October 2011) Source: Gordon Goldsborough Site Coordinates (lat/long): N49.73276, W101.08074 denoted by symbol on the map above

Sources:

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.

Trails Along the Pipestone by Pipestone History Project, c1981, page 724. [Manitoba Legislative Library, F5648.P56 Tra]

Obituary [James B. Smalley], Winnipeg Free Press, 6 February 1990, page 36.

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 Sequel to Trails Along the Pipestone, RM Pipestone History Committee, 2008, page 38.

Obituary [Bohdan Danylchuk], Winnipeg Free Press, 30 April 2019.

We thank David Harkness, Nathan Kramer, and George Penner for providing additional information used here.

This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough and Pamela Forsyth.

Page revised: 6 April 2021

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