Witches Closet

Carol has been after me to blog some about my life in Canada as a young girl.  Also, to let the grandkids know I lived much differently than they do now 55 years later. 

I remember that we moved to our home place which was about 1/2 mile from school, named Artichoke, when I was 5 years of age.  We were very poor and one year, not sure when it was but the janitor position came open at this school.  Each morning about 5 am Dad would get up and walk to school and build a fire in the furnace or re-kindle it, if the Coal had still held fire.  He then also would dust the desks from the dust that had been raised from the sweeping us kids had done the previous evening.  Even though we used some green sweeping compound there was a good bit of dust.  School started at 9 am, we had a 15 min recess in the am and also in the pm and 1 hour for lunch and school let out at 3:30pm.

This janitor position involved the whole family.  Two kids stayed after school to sweep the floor each evening.  Several times a year we as a family went to school on a Saturday and washed the floors and waxed them.  Then the windows got washed mainly in fall and in spring.  This was a two room school with 4 cloak rooms.  Cloak rooms were where us kids hung out coats and put our boots and also our lunch boxes.  NO BATHROOMS!!!  We had a two holer down the path from the school.  One for the boys and one for the girls.  Also, want to add that we got paid $30 a month.  We children didnot get allowance.  We all just worked so provisions could be made for us a home. 

This school remained in use till the summer of 1958.  After this we were bused to the next school, Glenbush, 5 miles from home. 

I remember, there was a closet in the basement underneath the stairs.  It really was a storage closet for some junk and also we kept our brooms in it.  Let me note here, we did not have electricity in the school so it was dark in the closet.  We kids at school called it the 'Witches Closet'.  It was a scary place for most of us especially when the older kids would try to shove the weaker and smaller ones in there and close the door.  I really hated to go to the closet after sweeping the floors in order to put the broom away.  The last school year from 1957-1958 only one room was was used for classes.  Eight grades in one room. (I'll blog about that soon another time).  So I was the only person sweeping each evening.  It was kinda creepy being alone in the building and then having to take the brooms down to the witches closet.  Also, my duty was to put a couple of shovels of coal on the fire to hold the fire over night so it wouldn't be so cold in the morning. 

This was a family job and we worked at it together to help earn a bit of money.