Northern Crown School District No. 2940
Northern Crown School was situated on land owned by Archie Burke, SW ¼ 3-45-1 W 4th. This high land was always known as Northern Crown for it was the top of the hills on the south side of the Battle River.
The school was built in 1913 with Mr. S.P. Lien as contractor and P. Sorken, H. Nysetvold, Mr. Solberg and Carl Tufte as carpenters. The school was ready for classes to begin in June 1914 with Miss Mary Dolmage as teacher. Most of the children were of Scandinavian descent as the names Johnson, Goldberg and Voxland suggest.
The enrollment was small – the reason perhaps because the children on the west side of the school had been attending Roros School. Enrollment fluctuated between thirteen and twenty-four and became as low as eight in the later years before the school closed in 1943. For a number of years, schooling was sparse as the students did not attend regularly. The local school board arranged to hold school during the warm weather in May to November. People experienced dire hardships and there was little money for warm clothing for the children.
The school was heated by an old pot-bellied stove that belched out more smoke than heat. Every morning the students and teacher had to stand outside in all kinds of weather until the smoke cleared. Mrs. Flora Perry told of the children sitting up on the cloakroom partitions to study until the room warmed up. Imagine the disruptions for anyone who tried to work. Mrs. Perry drove a team and cutter in the winter, fortified for the drive with a footwarmer and a heavy horsehide robe. Across country through the sandhills, her trip was seven or eight miles. One clear cold morning she made the trip and found a very cold school and only a very few students. It was 60 degrees below zero, Fahrenheit.
Northern Crown was not a socially active community. Christmas concerts and an annual picnic held at Battle Hill picnic site with students from nearby schools of Fram and Sherlock in Saskatchewan were the highlights of the year. Ice cream and more ice cream! Six or seven six-quart freezers of homemade ice cream!
Northern Crown School was moved on to the Chauvin School grounds and used for storage. Later, it was bought by Edwin Johnson and became a workshop.
Some of the local teachers were: Mrs. Olive (Folkins) MacKenzie, Miss Dorothy (Redmond) Atkins Anderson, Mrs. Heather (Richardson) Bradley, Mrs. Flora Perry and Mr. Pratt Perry. In the early years one of the teachers was a Mr. Winston Churchill.
A former pupil tells of one of the teachers who had a craving for mushrooms. This bachelor instructor, who lived in a little shack near the school, was often seen out searching for them. One morning, the children arrived for school but at 9:00 a.m. no teacher was on hand. As the hours slipped by, one of the older boys went to the teacherage to verify a hunch that something was wrong. Yes, teacher was very ill! The doctor’s diagnosis was too many mushrooms and their additive – toadstools.
The large gravel pile, owned by the Department of Highways, located just over a mile west of the junction of Highways 14 and 17, is on the site of Northern Crown School.
Northern Crown School District No. 2940
Submitted by Eleanor Perry
127-128-129