Residents ensure old P.E.I. schoolhouse remains 'heart of the community'
A lot of cherished memories are packed into the old one-room school house in Lorne Valley, P.E.I.
Susan Shaw, a long-time resident of the Kings County community, has many herself.
"Probably my favourite memory is just being a little girl and my father asking me to dance with him at the square dances and going around dancing and pretending you were so mature," she said.
Laverne MacInnis remembers taking her father, Elmer, dancing in the last years of his life. Elmer helped build the school in 1938.
"My dad lived to be almost 97, and he laid that dance floor and he danced there the last time at 95," MacInnis said. "So there's a lot of history there for many of us."
That history is now safely in the hands of the community.
The schoolhouse was built in 1938 after the original school needed to be replaced. (PARO)
Shaw and MacInnis are part of a group that formed the non-profit company Old Lorne Valley School Inc. and officially bought it a couple weeks ago from the Town of Three Rivers for $1.
Three Rivers had taken over operation of the building when Lorne Valley joined the amalgamated town in 2018.
"That was disappointing for a lot of us because then it became a part of a much larger organization and we all had to step back," MacInnis said. "We didn't even have a key to it. We had to go through Three Rivers to schedule any events and it lost that … it was the heart of the community and the heart was gone once it was absorbed into amalgamation."
The non-profit organization The Olde Lorne Valley Schoolhouse Inc. recently purchased the building from the Town of Three Rivers for $1. (Stacey Janzer/CBC)
When Three Rivers was looking to divest the property, the group snatched it up. Karen MacLeod, a lawyer who also has strong roots to the community, has been doing much of the legal work.
"We didn't want to see this beautiful school turned into like a house for somebody, a private house or an office building or something like that," said MacLeod. "We wanted it to stay as a community centre."
Elmer McInnis, seen in this old black-and-white photo, helped build the school in 1938 and danced on its floors when he was 95. (Laverne MacInnis)
The group has put a lot of work into restoring the building. It has a fresh coat of paint on the outside, the inside walls have been replaced, the floors refinished and the kitchen and bathroom renovated.
It is fitting for a building that still houses a trophy for winning the Island beautification contest for school grounds from 1939-41.
The group has renovated much of the building, including refinishing the floors often used for dance parties. (Stacey Janzer/CBC)
After the school closed in the mid-1960s, it was used as a community hub. Residents celebrated weddings, anniversaries and birthday parties. Socials were held after funerals in the nearby cemetery. Families gathered at Halloween instead of going door to door trick or treating.
And there were plenty of dances.
Anyone can become a supporting member of the non-profit group for $25 a year. (Stacey Janzer/CBC)
Square dancing will be returning to the old school Wednesdays throughout the summer.
"A lot of people that grew up in Lorne Valley that moved away to Ontario or the States, they still maintain really close connections with the community and they always come to the dances here anytime anybody comes home," Shaw said.
"So it's good drawing people back and keeping people connected, which seems to be coming lost really fast in the current day."
The group can be found on Facebook under The Olde Lorne Valley School. Anyone can become a supporting member of the group for $25 a year.
