Kindergarten School

My education all started when my mother had a fourth child, and was looking for a way to lighten up her maternal workload a bit. Through a nearby neighbor, she learned about a store-front pre-school on Royce Avenue being operated by Mrs. Smith, a kindly, old Baptist spinster. From my mother’s standpoint, one of the best things about ‘Mrs. Smith’s Kindergarten School’ was that it was totally free, which was well-within our growing family’s budget. I fondly recall it being one of the most pleasant experiences in my introduction to the educational process.

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Opening the entry door of the school each summer weekday at nine, and leaving the public sidewalk behind, about ten five-year-old’s entered into the long, narrow space, measuring about 20 feet in width by 80 feet in depth. Light fixtures, adorned with white glass globes, hung down from a thoroughly cracked plaster ceiling. Floors were fashioned with dark stained hardwood, and housed two chairs and an upholstered sofa of indeterminate age, as well as two round, well-scratched oak tables. Most furniture items had most likely been sourced from a nearby furniture clearance center.

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The most interesting item, however, was an ancient, upright piano occupying the left-rear corner of the interior space, waiting to be played by the strange-looking man sitting on the bench in front of it… the rake-thin, heavily whiskered, Mr. Watkins, Esq. 

 

The Daily Routine

Our day typically started with a prayer, led by our ‘teacher’, Mrs. Smith. We never learned whether she had been trained as a teacher. However, the mere fact that she was offering her services free of charge to give us less fortunate kids a starting education was all that was needed to make her ‘school’ a neighborhood success.

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Mrs. Smith appeared to be a pretty ancient woman, because, not only was she wearing glasses over a bulbous nose, but she sported lots of gray and white hair in page boy style. Severely wrinkled skin covered her face and thin arms. She moved about with a noticeable limp in her right leg.

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But to be totally honest and clear about the woman, her voice and delivery were those of sweet tenderness and caring, and she always referred to us as her ‘children’ whenever she addressed us. I fondly remember her as a very kind and gentle person.

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One of the next things she did was lead us in singing a rendition of ‘God Save the King’.  Canada was still part of the British Empire in the late 1930’s. The Patriotic ‘O Canada’ would eventually make a presence…but much later on.

 

Our voices were aided and abetted by the upright piano being enthusiastically played by Mr. Watkins. We subsequently learned that the gentleman was a recovering alcoholic of some 55 years of age. When he spoke, his voice was similar to a croaking frog. Mrs. Smith usually initiated polite requests to him in her kindly, wavering voice: “Mr. Watkins, would you accompany us in playing your rendition of ‘God Save Our Gracious King’?” After that he would commence doing so, singing along with us with a lusty gravelly voice.

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Now that the preliminaries were over with, we engaged in our activities for the day. Working with great enthusiasm on the two round oak tables, we created artistic treasures on sketch paper using Crayola wax crayons…made exotic figurines with multi-colored plasticene dough, or played a variety of children’s board games.

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About an hour into our morning, we were given a small ‘treat’ of apple slices, or some similar delicacy. Shortly after that, we put our heads down to enjoy a short ten-minute ‘nap’. As eleven o’clock approached, it was time to go home, leaving Mrs. Smith’s kindergarten behind, until our next visit.

 

Elementary School

The following year, 1940, when I turned six years of age, I was enrolled into first grade at St. Rita’s ‘Separate’ elementary school. Wondering why it was called separate, I learned it was called separate because it was an alternative school to Perth Avenue’s ‘public’ elementary school where I had been expected to join.

 

Our property taxes prepaid for us to attend Perth Avenue public school, at no charge. However, my parents had wanted their children to attend St. Rita’s to get religious training by Catholic lay teachers and nuns, so they had to pay extra for me to attend St. Rita’s, since my parents wanted me Both schools were about the same walking distance from our home.

 

St. Rita’s Elementary was a two-story brick building two blocks north of our home. It was very close to a set of fenced Canadian Pacific Railway freight tracks which proved hazardous over the years. A few kids who tried to scurry under stationary freights trains, trying to take a short-cut to our school, got themselves killed when the train started moving unexpectedly. 

 

Right next to our school and these tracks was a Cadmium Plating factory, belching out noxious fumes during most school days. Fortunately, our prevailing north-west winds blew these unhealthy fumes onto the Canadian Pacific’s freight track right-of-way. 

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However, there were definitely other saving graces for the school’s location. It had a large chain-link fenced schoolyard bordered by the street and a dirt lane at the rear, and it was located right across from the City’s Carlton Park, a large grassy chestnut tree-covered expanse offering two swing-sets, a large sandbox, a baseball diamond and touch- football open spaces for us boys to enjoy.

 

As an aside, I still have a sizable crease on the top of my head, caused by a youngster called Peter Calsaverra. He was throwing rocks into a chestnut tree trying to bring down loose chestnuts.  Since I was doing the same thing but from the opposite side of this same tree, one of his missiles went through the tree’s branches and landed on my head. After falling down unconscious, someone rescued me and carried me over to St. Rita’s school to get first aid. As I came-to, a habit-covered nun was in the course of pinching my scalp surface together, causing it to form into its currently dimpled depression. 

 

Second WW Begins

It was September 1940, and Canada entered the Second World War as an ally of England.  St. Rita’s had erected a large portable building outside the school’s main brick structure to house burgeoning population.

 

This was where our first-grade school room was located. I remember it very well...there was a pot-bellied wood and coal burning stove located on top of a masonry pedestal at the rear of the classroom. It had to be fed on a non-stop basis, since it got very cold during that 1940-41 Winter in the portable’s draughty, un-insulated space.

 

Among our early education highlights, we learned the alphabet, and how to print the characters with a big fat, black lead pencil. Memorably, it was the first time I’d ever received a valentine, learning who my admirers would turn out to be during future grades.

 

At recess, our class was turned-out to play in the school yard, just outside our portable building. Since there was no plumbing installed in our portable, we usually had to visit the main structure’s toilets when necessary.

 

Let The Games Begin

Boys had a variety of games to play, usually out in the school yard. Somewhat in order of popularity, these included ‘Marbles or Alleys’, ‘Cards’ or ‘Peggie Sticks’.

 

With Alleys, or Marbles, each player anted-up an equal number of marbles, placing them in a circle drawn by a stick in damp soil. With each player standing about 10-15 feet distant from the circle, they each lobbed a ball-bearing ‘shooter’ toward the circle, trying to see how close each could get to the center of the circle containing the marbles. The closest player was then given an opportunity to knock out as many marbles as he could from the circle. If a shot was missed, the next opposing player got a chance to try his luck at doing the same. The game was repeated until all the marbles were eventually removed from the circle.

 

Another popular game was played using gum Cards that came packaged with baseball or aviation cards. These were typically 2x3 inch cards containing a picture of a famous baseball player or a WWII bomber or fighter airplane. Competitors kept their cards tied up with an elastic band until ready for use. When challenged to a game, two players would agree on the number of cards to be played, and then the first player would ‘flip’ that number down to the ground. The second player then tried to ‘match’ the distribution of cards landing as a head or tail. Any mismatches went to the first player as his reward for winning the game.

 

Peggie Sticks was in reality a baseball simulation game. It was the most intricate of games we played and also required the most preparation. Making a set of Peggie Sticks started with finding an old broom handle, and cutting it into four pieces: a ‘Bat’ about one foot long, and three ‘Peggie’s’, each about four inches in length. Then, digging a groove or furrow in damp soil about two inches in depth, each of the three Peggie’s was placed in the groove with one of its ends pointing up in the air.

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Using the foot-long Bat, the first Peggy was struck, twirling it up into the air. While in   flight, the batter attempted to re-strike it, sending it out into the field, permitting it to be caught ‘on the fly’ by a ‘fielder’ vigilantly waiting out there to catch it. The remaining two Peggie’s were put into play similarly. Several other fielders could play against one batter during each game.