Bye for now to Greensville school
169 years of reading writing, arithmetic … and many more ‘memories’ on hold
There’s still a blackboard in old Greensville Public School — several whiteboards and smart boards — but one black one, so Julie Bentley found a piece of chalk.
“Thanks for the memories,” she wrote, a bittersweet coda on 169 years. You can tell she was a teacher (1982 and 1985 at Greensville) — the graceful, correct cursive hand.
And whom was she thanking? The building itself. The history.
It’s all coming down. The additions, the wall the kids painted their hand prints onto. And the kindergarten that is housed in the part of the school preserved from the beautiful original building with the central gable and bell tower built in 1848.
Greensville school’s one of the oldest in the area. But it’ll have to start counting from scratch in two years, when it reopens, same site, new building.
Tuesday, the community said goodbye. The auditorium was transformed into an archival shrine of sorts for the valedictory, almost elegiac ceremony, thanks to Jane Gaviller-Fortune and her committee; and to Waterdown Secondary’s museum-making Rob Flosman, who has children here.
So much change, so much history — world wars, technology, shifting patterns of settlement. The force of it is reflected in all the at once lingering and fleeting impressions left by the weight of different eras in the photographs and memorabilia.
“I remember the cows lined up at the fence to see us kids when we came out for recess,” city councillor Judi Partridge told me. “The Tew’s farm backed onto the school.”
Michelle Tew, whose family gave its name to nearby Tew’s Falls, told the gathering how the principal’s husband — “B.C., before cellphones, credit cards and climate change” — used to make an ice rink for the kids that would last all winter.
Former teachers John Crozier and Eric McNair produced a book for the 150th in 1998 and leaned for some material on a book produced in 1947 for its centennial.
“The whole population had changed, from rural to suburbia. So much was forgotten,” said John, there from ’68 to ’88, the first to teach computers. Low tech, but “we had fun.”
Anne Campbell had a multi-generational story to tell. Her grandmother, Maude Moore, taught at Greensville. Anne and her siblings attended, and then Anne’s three kids all graduated from there, the last in 2012. She still volunteers.
“It will be weird not to have these hallways to walk down,” she told me.
In a moving speech later, she vowed that the wall of hands (including caretaker Janet McManamy’s) would be preserved photographically, enlarged and mounted in the new school.
Bruce Picken mentioned amazing, lifechanging teachers, like Mr. Rayner. Gregory Hicks found a picture of his mother, Geneva Robillard, in a class photo from the ’30s. It was that kind of event.
“It’s mixed melancholy, but mostly optimism about having a new school,” said principal Kelly McRory.