New life for old school

Bedeque Area Historical Society works to preserve schoolhouse where L.M. Montgomery once taught

LOWER BEDEQUE — After years spent talking about moving the Lower Bedeque Schoolhouse, Percy Affleck is glad to see his old school is one step closer to being preserved at a new location.

“There’s reason to be optimistic that this is a good move at the right time,” said Affleck, who still lives in the community. “The province will benefit from it, the visitors will benefit from it.”

It’s been decades since Affleck, now a board member of the Bedeque Area Historical Society, has been a student in that classroom. Still, he remembers sitting at his desk in the one-room schoolhouse between ages six and 16.

“It’s so different than what kids experience today,” said Affleck.

As a child, Affleck was a “reluctant student,” whose mother frequently had to persuade him to attend class.

Even so, he recalled it being “a fun place to go to school.”

Children in the area, in grades 1 through 10, would walk to class every weekday; days off due to a storm were rare.

While Affleck said it was intimidating as a six-year-old being in the same class as someone 10 years his senior, there was camaraderie between all age groups.

He recalled tossing a ball over the roof for someone on the other side to catch, or playing cards when the weather was too poor to go outside.

He remembered his teacher preparing him and his classmates for Christmas concerts.

“There would have been a lot of practising,” he said. “The teacher would have been more engaged in every scene, that everybody had their parts memorized than their lessons learned.”

SAVING THE SCHOOL

The school, built in the 1880s, operated until the 1960s. Left vacant and unattended, it began falling apart. The south side of the roof was in poor condition. Water got in and damaged the schoolhouse.

In the mid-1980s, community members formed The Friends of L. M. Montgomery Lower Bedeque School, aiming to save the school.

Then, Affleck said his stance on the preservation was “neutral.”

“I wasn’t a big supporter of the restoration at the beginning, but I was willing to support the people that were dedicated to it,” he said. “I think the greatest appreciation would have been experienced by visitors.”

Between 1989 and 2018, the schoolhouse opened every summer as a tourist attraction.

Then, it was frequently enjoyed by tourists from Japan, eager to peek at the school where Lucy Maud Montgomery taught for six months in 1897 and 1898.

Even with the schoolhouse’s international appeal, Affleck said it remained significant to those in the area with ties to it.

“For most residents that remember it, it’s more of a community feature ... than it is a tourist feature.”

In recent years, it became clear to residents that the schoolhouse would not be able to continue operating in its current location — the same place it had been since it was first built.

The group that saved the school in the 1980s had dwindled to four members — one of whom, who’d been largely responsible for running the school, had moved to Stratford, P.E.I.

In 2017, The Friends of L. M. Montgomery Lower Bedeque School approached the Bedeque Area Historical Society to see if it would be interested in taking over management of the schoolhouse.

The historical society declined, due to the challenges of operating both the museum and the school, nearly six kilometres away.

It was around this time that casual talks of moving the building began; shortly after, the conversations grew more serious.

“It has a much greater chance of surviving in the future there, than it does where it is (now),” said Affleck.

HISTORY WORTH PRESERVING

Johanne Vigneault, executive director of the Community Museums Association of P.E.I., said the association is happy that the schoolhouse is being moved.

“That schoolhouse is really interesting,” she said. “It’s one of the most interesting, in our view.”

For Vigneault, the schoolhouse is worth saving because of its relation to Lucy Maud Montgomery, as well as the learning opportunity it provides visitors on what it was like being a student and teacher there.

“There are a lot of schoolhouses in the province,” she said. “But it’s good to try to preserve them because education is important ... and it’s heritage to be preserved and shared with people.”

After securing funding and having a tender accepted, the groundwork has begun at the schoolhouse’s new location across from the museum in Central Bedeque.

There is currently no set date for the move, but the historical society plans to have it at its new location this summer and ready to open in 2022.

With the school one step closer to being moved, Affleck is glad that with it, the school’s history will also be preserved.

Everyone that taught or attended there is aging or has already passed.

Having the schoolhouse operate as part of the museum, he said, helps keep its memory alive.

“We’re all going to get old and pass on,” said Affleck.

“So it’s critical that someone maintain the interest in the next generation, and the next generation after that.”