Background
Since the establishment of schools in the area now served by the Walter Fougere / West Richmond Education Center, the various communities were served by a number of one or two room schools, each within an established school section.
Until the establishment of the Richmond Municipal school Board, each of these school sections was administered by a group of trustees elected annually or biannually at a local rate payers meeting. The group of trustees each consisted of a chairperson, a secretary to record the minutes of the meetings and write required letters, a treasurer if the money to pay the teachers salaries was locally gathered and paid, and two or three other trustees.
After the establishment of the Richmond Municipal School Board , when teachers became paid at the municipal level, the position of treasurer was eliminated and the local trustees dealt with the local school issues and the hiring of teachers. When the hiring activities moved to the municipal level, the local trustees just oversaw the other activities of their respective school, then the practice of having trustees ceased to be with time.
From 1947 until September, 1966, Evanston and Walkerville were served by the two room, Walkerville-Evanston School, taught by a teacher for grades primary through five, and a teaching-principal for grades six through ten. Students in grades eleven and twelve went to either the St. Peters District High School or the Arichat Academy, which was later replaced by the Isle Madame District High School.
Prior to 1947 the mentioned communities were first served by single room schools, one at the Walkerville Green, ( at the intersection of the Whiteside and Walkerville Road) and the other in Evanston, then later by a joint single room school on the Whiteside Road just west of where the Randall family now have a home.
The Walkerville- Evanston School was taught by a succession of teachers through the years, including my mother, Vida J. Morgan, and yours truly.
I came to teach Primary through grade five beginning in September of 1962 until the end of June, 1964, while my mother was the teaching principal. I replaced her in that position in September, of 1964, when she took the position of principal at the Johnstown Consolidated School, Johnstown, Richmond County.
Since, at that time the lower room contained too many students, I had the grade five students move with me to the upper room, so that a willing teacher could be hired to replace me in the lower room. That accommodating decision meant that I had to teach grades 5 through ten that year, which was challenging but enjoyable. The late Elizabeth (King) McNamara was hired to teach grades Primary through four.
During the 1964 -65 academic year a number of health hazards were experienced by both students and staff in that two room school. Bats infested the attic and the walls accompanied by fleas. The latter in turn infested the students, who carried the parasites home to infest the rest of their respective families. Needless to say, there were numerous protestations from the many mothers who had to treat flea bites, thoroughly wash clothing (in some cases by hand), and rid their homes of the nasty, jumping, bloodsucking pests.
In addition to the fleas, the chemical tanks of the two indoor toilets began to back up, releasing sewer gas throughout the building. During the time this issue had to be dealt with by the municipal school board workers, Mrs. McNamara and I had to teach our classes, first for a week in the store section of. the former co-op store, then for two weeks in the old St.Francis de Sales Parish Hall in Lower River Inhabitants. To get to that building, since there was not yet a bridge over the river, the students and the teachers had to walk up the now Anchor Road and cross the river on a passenger ferry to then walk to the building, which was diagonally across from the then Riverdale Consolidated School.
During that academic year, the municipal school board at a joint meeting held in the Riverdale Consolidated School, under the then superintendent Pierre Le Gendre (who later changed his name to Peter Lawson in protest against how his family had been treated while on vocation in separatist Quebec) offered to build a new modern school to replace that building and the infested Walkerville-Evanston building. The residents of the communities on both sides of the River Inhabitants were in favor of having a new joint school, but could not agree on where to have it built. Each wanted to have it built on their own side of the river, so that their children could continue to walk to school, and the Evanston side proclaiming that they did not trust buses to transport their children to school. Knowing my staying and making accommodating adjustments to enable learning by the children in an unsuitable situation would not compel those parents to come to a mutual decision, I resigned at the year’s end and went to teach at St. Peters District High.
During the 1965-66 academic year Mrs. Elizabeth McNamara tried to teach the older grades, which was a new experience for her. A Mrs. Mary-Bill Scanlan taught grades primary through four.
Mrs. McNamara had a difficult year, due in part to having to teach her younger siblings, who did not want to accept their older sister as their teacher. At the end of that school year, the building was closed by the municipal school board and the parents had to accept having their children being bussed to the larger Louisdale School and the new Isle Madame District High School (IMDH).
A School Is Needed
During the ensuing years the population of the Louisdale school, which evolved into a grades Primary through eight
School when grades seven and eight were removed from attendance at IMDH in 1978 – 1979. By 1974 the population had grown to a size which demanded that portable classrooms had to be added to the Louisdale School.
In the spring of 1975, a general rate payers meeting was held in the Riverdale Consolidated School, Lower River Inhabitants, chaired by the then Municipality of Richmond County School Board superintendent, David (Dave) Samson.
At that meeting, the overcrowded situation at the Louisdale School was described and the board offered the communities of Whiteside, Walkerville, Evanston, Lower River Inhabitants, Hureauville, Grantville, Cleveland and Kempt Road a modern school building to be built at whatever site the communities mutually chose to have it built.
The children from the Port Malcolm would be bussed to the Point Tupper School and then to high school in Port Hawkesbury.
The immediate response to the offer, in contrast with the meeting held years before, was that none of the communities wanted the building built within their boundaries. The parents had come to trust the safety on buses and liked the fact that they were freed up from having to prepare a noon lunch for students who could be walking home during lunch hours. I stood up and humorously reminded them of the contrary argument put forth by many of the same people years before, that had resulted in no school being built. Many of them remembered and began to laugh, thus doing away with the tension generated by the new argument. The meeting then agreed to have the school constructed in the most populated community, which was Evanston, and I was elected to be chairperson of the new school planning committee.
The Planning
I may have helped positively refocus the meeting, but my resulting reward was to entail a tremendous amount of work on my part. At the time I was the principal of the big Centennial Elementary School in Port Hawkesbury and involved in a number of other associations within the communities, so in addition I had to draw up and have signed a petition to the Nova Scotia Department of Education and organize the other members to collect signatures, compose a brief to support the said petition when it would be submitted by the Municipal School Board to that Department in Halifax, to schedule, organized and chair meeting that would result in a school built to the specification of the communities, and to seek out and negotiate for the land that would be best suitable for the school’s construction.
The other committee members were Margaret Windsor, who was then chairperson of the Riverdale Consolidated School Section, and the late Lloyd Hill, a chemistry teacher at Port Hawkesbury High School and resident of Hureauville. We all worked harmoniously together and the present building was the result of our many efforts.
The aforementioned documents were generated and submitted according protocol to the Nova Scotia Department of Education, Halifax, with nothing being heard for almost a year. Near the end of that time, while I was on a trip to Halifax, on unrelated matters with the late Walter Fougere, then Warden of the Municipality of Richmond County and chairperson of its school board, I was telephoned by Superintendent Dave Samson to trace down the whereabouts of the submitted petition and brief. That I did, spending an afternoon to finally find it tucked away, forgotten, in one of the civil servant’s desk drawers. Using their embarrassment to advantage, I urged the expedient consideration of the appropriately submitted documents and a suitable response within an acceptable time frame. That expected go ahead was given in writing within a week and both the School Board and the committee were expending their energies in bringing into reality the building now known as the Walter Fougere / West Richmond Education Center.
The Construction
Authorized by the School Board, I negotiated with my late relative and friend Michael Proctor for the land on which the building sits. Once the land was secured, the committee had to collect data and suggestions concerning what should be constructed within the building that would best generate the desired learning and positive instruction. The results were science laboratory, the gymnasium with stage and acoustics, the many storage rooms, special reading center, which is now the computer center, the spacious vestibule, and the sinks in the classrooms. The latter was my suggestion since I have been both an art teacher and a teacher of elementary general science within elementary schools, as well as a school administrator.
Meanwhile, the Municipal School Board under the direction of Warden and Chairperson Walter Fougere, who during the mentioned trip to Halifax and in other pursuits to better education and life within Richmond County was laboring with a severely damaged heart and energy limited by the same to get things done. He was to die prior to the construction of the building, and his daughter, Mimi Fougere, then president of the River Bourgeois Credit Union, helped to break the sod and lay the corner stone, for a building to be named in honor and thanks to her late father.
Years later, a district school board, without regard for local history, admiration and feelings , wiped out the sign of honor and thanks, when renaming the building West Richmond. That same board took similar action as well in other communities, which hosted a school building. However, many people throughout the county and in neighboring municipalities still refer to the building a the “Walter Fougere” school / education center.
Walter and the other school board members chose an architectural company from Sydney as the winner of the bids and they designed and directed the construction of the building, which opened in time for the 1979-80 academic year, with students from all the communities listed earlier. The architectural company incorporated into its design all the suggestions of the said planning committee, plus a concave roof to safely shed the run off from all the various forms of precipitation experience in our climate, a design which worked much longer than those constructed on other contemporary building in the area. Only in recent years has the roof had to be repaired. In fact, its designs and the ideas it incorporated from our planning committee, the same firm put to use in the construction of the Cusack School in Sydney and later in its construction of the East Richmond Education Center, to name a few.
The Official Opening
In the planning of the official opening day ceremony of the new Walter Fougere School, my role and existence as the chairperson of the planning committee was forgotten, for I was not among the many dignitaries invited to participate on in that ceremony. Of the planning committee only Margaret Windsor, the chairperson of the former Riverdale Consolidated School Board was invited. Though my role and many efforts had been overlooked, I sneaked into the audience and watched the unfolding ceremony. Embarrassed and hurt by the glaring oversight, Margaret Windsor came to speak with me after the close of the event and express her dismay and personal hurt at my not being included in the ceremony or of at least being given public thanks by any of the individuals who should have remembered my contributions. Though I did experience feelings of hurt, I shrugged what happened off by focusing on the existence of the new building and what role it was to play in the area.
The History
Up until enrolments drastically dropped in the area, the Walter Fougere / West Richmond Education Center functioned as a Primary Through eight school. It student numbers were added to when the South Mountain School was closed in June of 1980 and the teacher of that school, the late Margaret MacIntosh, also became a member of the staff. The staff of the first year consisted of the late Cecil Shea as principal, the late Edna Boyd, Phyllis Cote, Elizabeth (Beth) Cooper, Lorena Forbrigger, Suzanne Forgeron on circuit, Mary C. Richard, Carol Samson. The second year, besides Margaret MacIntosh, I was added to the staff for I had transferred from Isle Madame Elementary, where I had worked for the previous two years. That year and the next I was able to experience some of the results from the contributions I had made as chairperson of the by then formerly disbanded planning committee.
I taught two of my own children during those two years in the first classroom of the classroom section; Tara in grade three the first year and Brendan in grade three the second year when I also taught a combined class of grades two and three. The following year Colleen Mac Rae joined the staff and I moved to Louisdale to teach.
In the succeeding years at the Walter Fougere School, various staff members came and left, Then, in 1994 disaster struck IMDH and Isle Madame Elementary (IM), for a deadly, toxic, black fungus was recognized as being the environmental pollution villain playing havoc with the students and staff of that building. The building had to be closed and the students moved to available spaces at the Walter Fougere Education Center and the Felix Marchand Education Center in Louisdale. IME was never to re-open, so the staff and students became part of the two schools mention.
Not many tears later, the enrolments dropped to the point where the Regional School Board designated Felix Marchand as a primary through grade four school and Walter Fougere as a grades five through eight school.
Still other experimental decisions were made; for a year or so the two schools were operated together under the new name West Richmond Educational Center with two campuses, but administration proved difficult, so the board operated them separately for a year or so, then tried again to re-unite them. Experiencing similar difficulties, it again separated the two schools, and Felix Marchand took back its old identity. The Walter Fougere building kept its new West Richmond Education Center name, because it had just gotten new team uniforms carrying that name. In recent years, Mr. Terry Doyle decided to put the name Walter Fougere back over the entrance at the front of the building with the letters “W.R.E.C” mounted below, an obvious attempt at compromise.
As well, advisory committees, consisting of representatives from parents, teachers, support staff, businesses and students were formed to serve the two schools; first as separate advisory committees, then as one join committee. At the close of this history, I am not aware as to whether or not such a committee or committees exist.
by Lester Morgan.
Since the establishment of schools in the area now served by the Walter Fougere / West Richmond Education Center, the various communities were served by a number of one or two room schools, each within an established school section.
Until the establishment of the Richmond Municipal school Board, each of these school sections was administered by a group of trustees elected annually or biannually at a local rate payers meeting. The group of trustees each consisted of a chairperson, a secretary to record the minutes of the meetings and write required letters, a treasurer if the money to pay the teachers salaries was locally gathered and paid, and two or three other trustees.
After the establishment of the Richmond Municipal School Board , when teachers became paid at the municipal level, the position of treasurer was eliminated and the local trustees dealt with the local school issues and the hiring of teachers. When the hiring activities moved to the municipal level, the local trustees just oversaw the other activities of their respective school, then the practice of having trustees ceased to be with time.
From 1947 until September, 1966, Evanston and Walkerville were served by the two room, Walkerville-Evanston School, taught by a teacher for grades primary through five, and a teaching-principal for grades six through ten. Students in grades eleven and twelve went to either the St. Peters District High School or the Arichat Academy, which was later replaced by the Isle Madame District High School.
Prior to 1947 the mentioned communities were first served by single room schools, one at the Walkerville Green, ( at the intersection of the Whiteside and Walkerville Road) and the other in Evanston, then later by a joint single room school on the Whiteside Road just west of where the Randall family now have a home.
The Walkerville- Evanston School was taught by a succession of teachers through the years, including my mother, Vida J. Morgan, and yours truly.
I came to teach Primary through grade five beginning in September of 1962 until the end of June, 1964, while my mother was the teaching principal. I replaced her in that position in September, of 1964, when she took the position of principal at the Johnstown Consolidated School, Johnstown, Richmond County.
Since, at that time the lower room contained too many students, I had the grade five students move with me to the upper room, so that a willing teacher could be hired to replace me in the lower room. That accommodating decision meant that I had to teach grades 5 through ten that year, which was challenging but enjoyable. The late Elizabeth (King) McNamara was hired to teach grades Primary through four.
During the 1964 -65 academic year a number of health hazards were experienced by both students and staff in that two room school. Bats infested the attic and the walls accompanied by fleas. The latter in turn infested the students, who carried the parasites home to infest the rest of their respective families. Needless to say, there were numerous protestations from the many mothers who had to treat flea bites, thoroughly wash clothing (in some cases by hand), and rid their homes of the nasty, jumping, bloodsucking pests.
In addition to the fleas, the chemical tanks of the two indoor toilets began to back up, releasing sewer gas throughout the building. During the time this issue had to be dealt with by the municipal school board workers, Mrs. McNamara and I had to teach our classes, first for a week in the store section of. the former co-op store, then for two weeks in the old St.Francis de Sales Parish Hall in Lower River Inhabitants. To get to that building, since there was not yet a bridge over the river, the students and the teachers had to walk up the now Anchor Road and cross the river on a passenger ferry to then walk to the building, which was diagonally across from the then Riverdale Consolidated School.
During that academic year, the municipal school board at a joint meeting held in the Riverdale Consolidated School, under the then superintendent Pierre Le Gendre (who later changed his name to Peter Lawson in protest against how his family had been treated while on vocation in separatist Quebec) offered to build a new modern school to replace that building and the infested Walkerville-Evanston building. The residents of the communities on both sides of the River Inhabitants were in favor of having a new joint school, but could not agree on where to have it built. Each wanted to have it built on their own side of the river, so that their children could continue to walk to school, and the Evanston side proclaiming that they did not trust buses to transport their children to school. Knowing my staying and making accommodating adjustments to enable learning by the children in an unsuitable situation would not compel those parents to come to a mutual decision, I resigned at the year’s end and went to teach at St. Peters District High.
During the 1965-66 academic year Mrs. Elizabeth McNamara tried to teach the older grades, which was a new experience for her. A Mrs. Mary-Bill Scanlan taught grades primary through four.
Mrs. McNamara had a difficult year, due in part to having to teach her younger siblings, who did not want to accept their older sister as their teacher. At the end of that school year, the building was closed by the municipal school board and the parents had to accept having their children being bussed to the larger Louisdale School and the new Isle Madame District High School (IMDH).
A School Is Needed
During the ensuing years the population of the Louisdale school, which evolved into a grades Primary through eight
School when grades seven and eight were removed from attendance at IMDH in 1978 – 1979. By 1974 the population had grown to a size which demanded that portable classrooms had to be added to the Louisdale School.
In the spring of 1975, a general rate payers meeting was held in the Riverdale Consolidated School, Lower River Inhabitants, chaired by the then Municipality of Richmond County School Board superintendent, David (Dave) Samson.
At that meeting, the overcrowded situation at the Louisdale School was described and the board offered the communities of Whiteside, Walkerville, Evanston, Lower River Inhabitants, Hureauville, Grantville, Cleveland and Kempt Road a modern school building to be built at whatever site the communities mutually chose to have it built.
The children from the Port Malcolm would be bussed to the Point Tupper School and then to high school in Port Hawkesbury.
The immediate response to the offer, in contrast with the meeting held years before, was that none of the communities wanted the building built within their boundaries. The parents had come to trust the safety on buses and liked the fact that they were freed up from having to prepare a noon lunch for students who could be walking home during lunch hours. I stood up and humorously reminded them of the contrary argument put forth by many of the same people years before, that had resulted in no school being built. Many of them remembered and began to laugh, thus doing away with the tension generated by the new argument. The meeting then agreed to have the school constructed in the most populated community, which was Evanston, and I was elected to be chairperson of the new school planning committee.
The Planning
I may have helped positively refocus the meeting, but my resulting reward was to entail a tremendous amount of work on my part. At the time I was the principal of the big Centennial Elementary School in Port Hawkesbury and involved in a number of other associations within the communities, so in addition I had to draw up and have signed a petition to the Nova Scotia Department of Education and organize the other members to collect signatures, compose a brief to support the said petition when it would be submitted by the Municipal School Board to that Department in Halifax, to schedule, organized and chair meeting that would result in a school built to the specification of the communities, and to seek out and negotiate for the land that would be best suitable for the school’s construction.
The other committee members were Margaret Windsor, who was then chairperson of the Riverdale Consolidated School Section, and the late Lloyd Hill, a chemistry teacher at Port Hawkesbury High School and resident of Hureauville. We all worked harmoniously together and the present building was the result of our many efforts.
The aforementioned documents were generated and submitted according protocol to the Nova Scotia Department of Education, Halifax, with nothing being heard for almost a year. Near the end of that time, while I was on a trip to Halifax, on unrelated matters with the late Walter Fougere, then Warden of the Municipality of Richmond County and chairperson of its school board, I was telephoned by Superintendent Dave Samson to trace down the whereabouts of the submitted petition and brief. That I did, spending an afternoon to finally find it tucked away, forgotten, in one of the civil servant’s desk drawers. Using their embarrassment to advantage, I urged the expedient consideration of the appropriately submitted documents and a suitable response within an acceptable time frame. That expected go ahead was given in writing within a week and both the School Board and the committee were expending their energies in bringing into reality the building now known as the Walter Fougere / West Richmond Education Center.
The Construction
Authorized by the School Board, I negotiated with my late relative and friend Michael Proctor for the land on which the building sits. Once the land was secured, the committee had to collect data and suggestions concerning what should be constructed within the building that would best generate the desired learning and positive instruction. The results were science laboratory, the gymnasium with stage and acoustics, the many storage rooms, special reading center, which is now the computer center, the spacious vestibule, and the sinks in the classrooms. The latter was my suggestion since I have been both an art teacher and a teacher of elementary general science within elementary schools, as well as a school administrator.
Meanwhile, the Municipal School Board under the direction of Warden and Chairperson Walter Fougere, who during the mentioned trip to Halifax and in other pursuits to better education and life within Richmond County was laboring with a severely damaged heart and energy limited by the same to get things done. He was to die prior to the construction of the building, and his daughter, Mimi Fougere, then president of the River Bourgeois Credit Union, helped to break the sod and lay the corner stone, for a building to be named in honor and thanks to her late father.
Years later, a district school board, without regard for local history, admiration and feelings , wiped out the sign of honor and thanks, when renaming the building West Richmond. That same board took similar action as well in other communities, which hosted a school building. However, many people throughout the county and in neighboring municipalities still refer to the building a the “Walter Fougere” school / education center.
Walter and the other school board members chose an architectural company from Sydney as the winner of the bids and they designed and directed the construction of the building, which opened in time for the 1979-80 academic year, with students from all the communities listed earlier. The architectural company incorporated into its design all the suggestions of the said planning committee, plus a concave roof to safely shed the run off from all the various forms of precipitation experience in our climate, a design which worked much longer than those constructed on other contemporary building in the area. Only in recent years has the roof had to be repaired. In fact, its designs and the ideas it incorporated from our planning committee, the same firm put to use in the construction of the Cusack School in Sydney and later in its construction of the East Richmond Education Center, to name a few.
The Official Opening
In the planning of the official opening day ceremony of the new Walter Fougere School, my role and existence as the chairperson of the planning committee was forgotten, for I was not among the many dignitaries invited to participate on in that ceremony. Of the planning committee only Margaret Windsor, the chairperson of the former Riverdale Consolidated School Board was invited. Though my role and many efforts had been overlooked, I sneaked into the audience and watched the unfolding ceremony. Embarrassed and hurt by the glaring oversight, Margaret Windsor came to speak with me after the close of the event and express her dismay and personal hurt at my not being included in the ceremony or of at least being given public thanks by any of the individuals who should have remembered my contributions. Though I did experience feelings of hurt, I shrugged what happened off by focusing on the existence of the new building and what role it was to play in the area.
The History
Up until enrolments drastically dropped in the area, the Walter Fougere / West Richmond Education Center functioned as a Primary Through eight school. It student numbers were added to when the South Mountain School was closed in June of 1980 and the teacher of that school, the late Margaret MacIntosh, also became a member of the staff. The staff of the first year consisted of the late Cecil Shea as principal, the late Edna Boyd, Phyllis Cote, Elizabeth (Beth) Cooper, Lorena Forbrigger, Suzanne Forgeron on circuit, Mary C. Richard, Carol Samson. The second year, besides Margaret MacIntosh, I was added to the staff for I had transferred from Isle Madame Elementary, where I had worked for the previous two years. That year and the next I was able to experience some of the results from the contributions I had made as chairperson of the by then formerly disbanded planning committee.
I taught two of my own children during those two years in the first classroom of the classroom section; Tara in grade three the first year and Brendan in grade three the second year when I also taught a combined class of grades two and three. The following year Colleen Mac Rae joined the staff and I moved to Louisdale to teach.
In the succeeding years at the Walter Fougere School, various staff members came and left, Then, in 1994 disaster struck IMDH and Isle Madame Elementary (IM), for a deadly, toxic, black fungus was recognized as being the environmental pollution villain playing havoc with the students and staff of that building. The building had to be closed and the students moved to available spaces at the Walter Fougere Education Center and the Felix Marchand Education Center in Louisdale. IME was never to re-open, so the staff and students became part of the two schools mention.
Not many tears later, the enrolments dropped to the point where the Regional School Board designated Felix Marchand as a primary through grade four school and Walter Fougere as a grades five through eight school.
Still other experimental decisions were made; for a year or so the two schools were operated together under the new name West Richmond Educational Center with two campuses, but administration proved difficult, so the board operated them separately for a year or so, then tried again to re-unite them. Experiencing similar difficulties, it again separated the two schools, and Felix Marchand took back its old identity. The Walter Fougere building kept its new West Richmond Education Center name, because it had just gotten new team uniforms carrying that name. In recent years, Mr. Terry Doyle decided to put the name Walter Fougere back over the entrance at the front of the building with the letters “W.R.E.C” mounted below, an obvious attempt at compromise.
As well, advisory committees, consisting of representatives from parents, teachers, support staff, businesses and students were formed to serve the two schools; first as separate advisory committees, then as one join committee. At the close of this history, I am not aware as to whether or not such a committee or committees exist.
by Lester Morgan.
