The School District of Mapleton No. 5 was formed by the Protestant Section of the Board of Education on the 3rd day of July 1871. The boundaries were readjusted by the Board on Nov. 3, 1886 to consist of the following lands: in the municipality of St. Andrews: Lots 1 to 25 both inclusive, and, the inner and outer 2 miles in the Parish of St. Clements.

Children located on the east side of the Red River attended school at Mapleton and had to cross by boat and/or a make-shift ferry system during the summer months and walk the ice in winter. When the ice neared the danger point in spring, it has been reported that many walked across having to jump from one piece of ice to another. Then when it started to really break up, the east side kids stayed home. In the late fall and early winter it was a reverse procedure, and the children were cut off from their schooling until the ice was frozen enough to walk on, Once again, some attempted walking on ice that
was too thin and many accidents happened.

By 1893, St. Clements Municipality was paying $60.00 reliefs and by 1896 the Mapleton boundary was readjusted again when a new school district was formed out of portions of Mapleton, North St. Andrews, Ashfield and East Selkirk. The petitions were presented by J. Mowatt and others and St. Clements Municipality appointed Alexander Butler Rowley as their Arbitrator.

From an earlier ferry agreement signed and a bylaw No. 130 (Sept. 5, 1896) in the spring of 1898, St. Clements agreed to pay half the costs toward equipping and running a ferry across the Red River near the Mapleton School, providing the Municipality of St. Andrews would share on a 50-50 basis. There was quite a controversy
over the site of Ferry No. 3 but it was soon resolved by a Committee from both Councils and the Ferry was soon transporting children back and forth. As the population increased on the east side river lots, the ferry was so overcrowded that many of the children tumbled of and got a dunking. Parents were quite frantic duding the years when Mapleton and St. Andrews schools were overcrowded to the point of overflowing.

Then in 1899 there was much agitation for schools all along the east side of the Red River. During that summer petitions were being presented to Council and Arbitration
hearings were being held as to the division of Mapleton School.

The Reeve of St. Clements muncipality (Robt. Hay) spoke strongly in favor of granting the petitions. He thought the time had come for a separation of the two sides of the river in school matters.

Doing this now, he felt would probably lead to a reorganization of all the
school districts on the Red River. The Arbitration hearings were in favor of the split and within a few months of one another the Gonor, Kitchener, and Donald School Districts were formed early in 1900. The Gonor School in particular was overcrowded on the first day of school, while Kitchener didn’t even have a building to move into and had to use the St. Clements Council Chamber for a year or so, free of charge, of course.
I mention this only to stress the point of how many children had been crossing the river into the Muncipality of St. Andrews to attend school. Gonor alone had about 130 children and the building wasn’t even finished when they moved in. It was only one room, so you can imagine the overcrowding.

This was the end of our involvement with Mapleton S.D. No. 5 except there was always friendly relationships and sport competitions between the two sides of the river, not to mention concerts and dances. St. Clements children still walked the ice in winter and boated in summer to enjoy outings and social events with their west bank friends. And we are all back together as a School Division under order-in-council No. 224161. Effective April 1, 1967, when the Lord Selkirk School Division No. 11 formed. The Red River was never a barrier or a boundary between us, but rather just another highway to
cr0ss.

A lot of St. Clements people watched with interest when the 1912 Mapleton School was being built, and some viewed the specifications that were on display at F. Pook’s Hardware Store in Selkirk. Some of our residents even bid on the old school when it was put up for sale toward the end of July, 1912, before the new one was finished.

The Mapleton School has been written up in the St. Andrews Book “Beyond the Gates of Lower Fort Garry”, and you should refer there for the story relating to the school district.

For your interest and information we now would like to list the teachers who taught at Mapleton S.D. No. 5, we hope you enjoy the list, and can pick out the teachers
who taught you, if you went to this school.

Lizzie Fraser 1886-1887
Arthur D. Price 1888-1889
Adam Ritchie 1889-1890
Garner Gahan 1891
Augueba Galloway 1891- 1892
Bertha Partington 1892-1894
E.B. Robertson 1894
W.F. Gover 1894-1895
W.T. Gavin 1896
W.S. Thellwood 1897
Marion H. Hislop 1897
Marion H. Hobman 1898-1900
Agnes Macpherson 1900
Gertrude Jones 1901
Jessie Tracy 1905
Jane Gregory 1905
Helen Fraser 1906-1908
Robert G. Halbert 1909
Nellie Taylor 1909-1910
Beatrice Beers 1910
Nellie H. George 1911
Marion Mclaren 1912-1913
Annie Thexton 1914
Marion Hooker 1915-1916
Evelyn E. Maclean 1916
Doris Newton 1917- 1918
C.E. Chambers 1918
Marion R. Tracey 1919
Vida Lloyd 1919
G.G. Honner 1920
Bertha E. Rogan 1920-1921
Margaret Annie Shaw 1921-1925
Fannie Bell Atchison 1925-1926
William Rea 1926-1928
Frank L. Palmer 1928-1931
James Ernest MacKay 1931-1932
James Elliot Crowe 1932-1936
Kathleen Teresa King 1936-1941
Margaret C. Stephen 1940-1941 (Sunrise Mapleton)
Elizabeth Gwendoline McKenzie (Substitute) 1941
Louise Cladys Greenham 1941-1943 (Sunrise)
Miss Edith Mary Br:uce 1942
Margaret Herborg Munson 1942-1943
Elizabeth Gwendoline McKenzie 1943-1945
Elinor Mary Kartzmark 1943-1944 (Sunrise)
Kristin Smith 1944-1964 (1944-45 Sunrise)
Jean Mary Grusz 1945-1946 (Sunrise)
Irene Margaret Bisson 1946-1947
John Lord 1947-1948
Sydney Alexander Lecker 1948-1949
Margaret Anne Leslie 1949
Mrs. Annie Catherine James 1949-1950
Cecil D. Blais Davidson 1950
Evelyn Brandow 1950- 1951
Myrtle Meireday 1950-1951
Anne Kochie 1951-1955
Theresa marie Todd 1951-1952
Miss Violet Beck 1952-1953
Margaret Paterson 1953-1954
Lena Allison 1955-1956
Tony Maksymyk 1955-1957
Helen Carnie 1955
Omar O. Lamb 1956
Harld Leslie Patzer 1956-1960
Mrs. J. Hollingcr (sub) 1956-1957
Mrs. L. Bourk 1957-1959
Ida M. Patterson 1959-1963
Lloyd Leftruk 1960-1963
Patricia Curtis 1961-1963
Beatrice Magura 1963
Doreen Oliver 1963-1965
N.J. Williamson 1963-1964
George Bush 1963- 1964
Patricia Derewianchuk 1961-1966
William Kirbyson 1964-1965
Marilyn Taylor 1964-1966
Jane Susan Wheeler 1964-1965
Lynne Carswell 1965- 1966
A.E. Zieroth 1965-1966
Edward Husack 1965-1966
Doreen Oliver 1966

Submitted by slh