High Banks, the historic school that became Riverbank
Driving north along Fountain Street (a.k.a. Woolwich Street Regional Road17, Breslau Road) once Kossuth Road is passed, most eyes look right ... there’s the airport!
Once in a while, look left. Semihidden between Riverbank Court and Riverbank Drive is a small stone building. Now privately owned, it is historically significant and bears a heritage designation.
The story begins in 1832. Joseph Hagey married Sophia Bricker and among her dowry from father Samuel was 300 acres east of the Grand River, south of present day Breslau. Hagey and Bricker are two family names engraved on the pantheon of Waterloo Township’s early settlers. Samuel was instrumental in forming the German Tract Company which paved the way for Mennonite settlement. Joseph became an ordained minister and eventually a popular Mennonite bish- op in 1851.
Back to the dowry. Of that 300 acres, Joseph and Sophia donated a slice high atop the east bank of the Grand as a school site. That same year, a 24 x 20foot log structure was built and it welcomed area youngsters for 30-plus years. Boards painted with black paint served as blackboards and pieces of gypsum from the river bank became chalk for those early pupils who sat astride benches ... no desks. A new frame school went up in 1865 but served for only five years.
Now we get to the 1870 stone building. Over the first four decades, those small wooden schools were officially SS #15 but nicknamed High Banks to reflect the location overlooking a meandering bend in the Grand. A new name quickly caught on: Riverbank School.
It was one room, partly-finished inside, had no basement but did have double desks — no more straddling! Before the end of the century, a stone anteroom was added and an interior dividing wall created two rooms: junior and senior.
Changes came slowly: 1929, a high window provided better light and a basement was dug; 1939, playground equipment set up; 1941, hydroelectricity installed costing $375; 1943, the interior was stripped and properly plastered while single desks replaced the doubles.
Riverbank, part of the oldest school section in Waterloo County, was one of the less affluent. The 1930s were particularly difficult as a shortage of funds and tight-fisted school trustees created “desperate shortages.” Those words are from an inspired and dedicated educator who came at just the right time. As principal and teacher of the senior room, Eben C. Cressman has left a vivid account of his nine years at Riverbank (1935-1944) in the Kitchener Public Library’s Grace Schmidt Room. He mentions:
á winters with more than 80 students jammed into the two rooms;
á years when he spent hundreds of 14-hour days preparing for five separate grade levels;
á having to find pennies and nickels, usually in his own pocket, to buy supplies and books that the trustees would not.
Most schools had Christmas pageants — under Cressman, Riverbank’s became the big event around Breslau with music, dances, skits, plays and recitals. During the Second World War, Cressman organized Riverbank’s victory gardens. Students grew vegetables and, early Saturday morning, volunteers delivered them to “Mr. Bauman” in Breslau, who then sold them at Kitchener market with proceeds going to the Red Cross for its wartime work.
In 1944, Cressman took on a larger role with the board of education and he was replaced by Vera Good, who was just beginning her remarkable career in education. Cressman is in the Waterloo Region Hall of Fame: Eben Cressman should be. Riverbank carried on through some quarrelsome political times in the late 1950s and was eventually closed in 1961.
In 1962, the County of Waterloo purchased the school building for $6,500 and county librarian Walter Gowing oversaw the beginning of today’s Region of Waterloo Library system. In 1974, the library left and Riverbank became part of Waterloo Region’s public health laboratory. It has since become privately owned.
In 1980, Cambridge designated the building under the Ontario Heritage Act for its historical background and its 19th century vernacular classic architecture.
Next time on the Preston/ Breslau/Kitchener shortcut along Fountain/Woolwich Street, admire the airport but give a thought to an ex-school building which sits on land that began teaching Waterloo Township youngsters in 1832.