Bowmanville High School - Screech Owl Yearbook (Bowmanville, Ontario Canada)

Page 179 text:

scraped arms and a hole in the ceiling. It was a good thing Dr. Bell lived beside the school, for he did an excellent job in bandaging up Ber- nice's arms. I can't remember any detentions. I guess Mr. Dippell thought our scare was punishment enough. Of course, he gave us a lit- tle lecture. We all had to pay for the patch on the ceiling. They tell me you can still see it. It is now I believe a typing-room. Have you ever seen this repair and wondered how it hap- pened? We know, we were there! Elinor Sykes CMrs. G. Brent? Ik at lk wk ak ik Charlie Mcllveen C33-'39J Know a Doctor and an M.P.P. in Oshawal, always a cut-up and a clown in class, remembers being asked to leave the room three times in one day, first by Mr. Wagar for not paying attention. The third time I reported to Mr. Dippell, he ran me right across his office with his finger under my chin, telling me how he could do without me for one week. Sk Ik lk 42 Ik lk One hot afternoon in early June the English class was trying to look intelligent. The blinds were all drawn in Form V and Miss Jeffery walked into the room and said as she yanked up the blinds, The Lord said 'let there be light'. As she did so, the blind took off by itself and shot right to the top of the very tall window. A voice from the back said sotto voce And there was light. D. Creaser Ik ik Ik Ik lk Ik In the winter of 1935-1936, we had a freezing rain storm which completely glazed everything, including the two hills behind the school, which at that time, were unimpeded. Paddy Welsh acquired a great long runner car- pet from his home at the south end of the school grounds, and during the noon hour, kids by the dozens skimmed blissfully down the hills, with and without the magic carpet. Alas! At last bell, most of them were flailing helplessly about, trying to get back up, to the howls of laughter from students and teachers alike wat- ching from the back windows. H1938 was the year of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs , which played at the Regent Theatre in Oshawa. One gorgeous Spring af- ternoon, five girls from the same corner of the Commercial Class, who had appeared to be in robust health that morning, were all absent. The next morning, while all sat sheepishly waiting for the axe to fall, a very magnanimous Mr. Ainslie came to the miscreants and with a knowing twinkle in his eyes, quietly asked, Did you all enjoy the movie, girls? What a prince of a fellow! The girls involved in this were Elsie Lymer, Dorothy Nickerson, Helen Cotton, Lucy Lyle and Carol Martyn CMrs. Wm. Colvillel, the writer. lk lk lk lk il! ik Mr. Ainslie was also the power behind a project undertaken in 1939 for an Open House held March 9. There were to be programs all over the school - marching and folk dances in the Gym, music and drama in the Assembly Hall, speed typing in Commercial Room and experiments in the Labs, but the feature was a miniature model of part of the business section of King St. There was as yet no Industrial Arts Dept., but under Mr. Ainslie's direction, the model was created. Then the Art classes put in long hours mixing and splashing brick red paint with frequent interruptions and trips up town to determine the shape of the windows or the colour of the trim paint. Everyone was proud of the result. ik lk lk lk ik ik The great movie of 1939 was the Wizard of Oz. At Commencement that year, four talented dancers brought down the house in laughter with their Off to see the Wizard dance - Louise Cox as Dorothy, Keith Slemon as the Scarecrow, Bill Edger as the Lion, in a rented suit which left him blind, and Ken Nickerson in a tin woodman's outfit created by Mr. Ainslie. !k ik ik lk lk lk My memories of B.H.S. embrace five years, starting in 1936, but they are most vivid for my graduating year of 1940 - '41 and I will confine my nostalgia to this period.

Page 178 text:

highly polished NEW hardwood hallways to the new form. One skinny, sixteen year old boy carried one desk down, and began to go back for another. He did not hurry back because he had an overpowering premonition that he would fall down the stairs if he had to carry another desk. Naturally he didn't voice his fears to anyone for fear of being laughed out of the lodge, so he trudged up the thousands of steps - praying there would be no more desks. There were .... so he picked up a desk, gritted his teeth, and headed for the stairway .... when he looked down, there were Miss Smith and Miss Stedman standing at the bottom, engrossed in conversation. Determined not to make a fool of himself, he carefully went down one step and reached for the second step - and caught his heel .... He only used three more steps to reach the bottom where he arrived on his feet and still clutching the desk. In the two seconds it took, he saw Miss Stedman zip into the classroom and Miss Smith stand spellbound with her only movement being her mouth opening in amazement. The boy was so thank- ful at having landed at the bottom still alive and with the desk, that he staggered on his way, not knowing that three jolting steps had caused the contents of the inkwell to seek an exit. The next day, when a very irate Mr. Dip- pell used some well chosen, caustic comments about the sloppiness of someone who had splat- tered ink along the new hallway - did that boy confess his guilt? You know the answer. Perhaps after forty odd years it isksafe to tell who put the first scars on a spic and span new addition. Yes I was the one. Nelson Osborne 4' lk lk lk lk ak Important visitors often came to the school and addressed the students. Sir Arthur Currie spoke on one occasion and on another, Wilson MacDonald lectured and read his poems. I remember Miss Smith loaning me 10c for ad- mission. Ada Annis CMrs. G. Pickelll '29-'33. She also remembers having lunch, in good weather, down by the creek. In winter, we ate in the lunch room. Sometimes we put potatoes in the oven and one person cooked meat, etc. At 12 o'c1ock - a mad rush and you were lucky if you got your own potato. Pk ik Sli Ik if Pl' THE PATCHED CEILING! There will be some who will remember this escapade. It was too hush hush to reach the Screech Owl. The time was 1930 or thereabouts. We girls from outside town used to find it rather hard to know how to put in our noon hours. We ate our lunches in the dark little room to the right of the basement stairs. We could hear the boys in their lunch room, east of ours, having fun tossing pennies, not a girl's sport. A number of us decided to go exploring, namely Bernice CRundleD Magee, Elizabeth CHendersonJ Bates, Ethel CHendersonJ Kent, Helen CMacDonald7 Piper, Elinor CSykesD Brent, Ada CYellowleesJ Allin, maybe there were several more: We knew the old attic assembly hall was out of bounds, but that didn't phase us. Up three flights of squeaky old wooden stairs we crept. There it was, the old assembly hall, the high stage, the storage rooms filled with old! costumes and scenery, the gun cases filled with rifles and most tantalizing of all, that small door on the left hand wall. What was behind it? We knew the boys used to go through it to shoot in target practice, but what else was in there? We found out! A few boards had been thrown across the floor joists to make a walk to the target and ..... a five foot brick wall to our ! left! Well! Bernice looked over the wall and discovered an old bed, actually a door covered with an old patchwork quilt - someone's hideaway for skipping classes no doubt. There was a pile of old magazines. True Story? She decided to find out. We lifted her up to the top of the wall and she was supposed to ease herself down on to a board on the other side, only she didn't. She slipped and disappeared between the joists into the room below. We were terrified. Was she killed? There was no sound. We knew the Science Lab. was below. Had she impaled herself on a water faucet? Down the stairs we rushed only to find the lab door locked. Still no sound from inside. Down two more flights of stairs to find Herbie Moyse. Good old Herbie the friend of the country kids. Herbie unlocked the door and there was Bernice sitting on the floor in a dazed condition and there to our surprise was Ruth Tuerk, who had been in the lab studying CI think she had been just as surprised at Bernice's entry as Bernice herself J. The only damage done was two badly

Page 180 text:

We had emerged from the great depression only because of the cruel, economic push engendered by the looming perils of the 2nd Great War. We were at the crossroads of our lives during the final B.H.S. year, as indeed was the whole of democracy - for at this time the heroic Battle of Britain was being fought. Here we were in the snug safety of Bowman- ville High School, free from danger, unscathed, uncaring. The school contained less than 300 students and the teaching staff numbered ten, including Principal, Louie Dippell - a man respected by the students and staff alike. His dry wit was ap- parent even while disciplining an errant student or skillfully instructing a Chemistry class. Three teachers of that era stand out in my rather murky memory, Marian Wager and two young bachelors who before the year was to finish would have both joined the Armed Ser- vices of Canada, Harold Longworth and Len Lucas. Marian, who was to change her name to Jeffery that same year, was probably the best all-round teacher I ever had, in or out of medical school - even though she couldn't spell a lick. Harold Longworth, a small, friendly man wearing gaudy ties and a Warm smile, taught French throughout the school as well as German. Although he knew nothing about the game of football, in our hour of need he became the coach and did a tremendous job. He was a real pal to all the 5th form students. Len Lucus did a fine job teaching four major 5th form sub- jects even though he was undoubtedly distrac- ted by the presence in his class of a lovely young lady named Pat Emmett who he was later to marry. Len returned to Bowmanville after the War to become a teacher on the Staff and to succeed Louie Dippell as principal of B.H.S. M1940-'41 was an era of school dances to recorded music - a time of jitter-bugging to Glenn Miller, swinging to Benny Goodman, fox- trotting to Glen Gray or Artie Shaw. A year when you could take your girl to the show at the Royal and later enjoy milkshakes and banana- splits at Carter's, all for a dollar. A year when Frances Sutton, the music teacher, had the whole school singing 4 part harmony in assem- bly every Wed. morning. A time when discipline was strong, morale and spirit were high, when there was no drinking or drug problem but many a surreptitious cigarette in the furnace room. My melange of memory is brightest when focused on the football team Cor rugby as it was then calledl. Ours was the 1st Bowmanville team to win a Senior Cossa Crown and I will always be proud to be associated with such a talented, dedicated group of young men as were on that club. Many in later years gained pre-eminence in their field, whether it be law, medicine, university professors, engineers, of- ficers in the' armed services or businessmen. After winning our division against Oshawa, Peterborough and Cobourg we had a tough and exciting two game total point series against Belleville - a big, brawny, over-weight, Cand over-agel team. They trounced us in the Eastern town but we came back the next week at B.H.S. to win the total point series in the last 5 minutes. This is the most exciting game of any sport in which I never participated. It featured the booming punts of Bill Brown, the power-running of Sandy Colville and the pin- point passing of Gib Mcllveen behind the sturdy wall of blockers led by Dick Rickard, Fat Casbourn, Bill Hutchinson and the rest. It was played before more than 1,000 people in- cluding the Midland Regiment who at that timer were stationed at the Bowmanville Badminton Club. The All-Ontario Final was anti-climax. Itj was played in Port Colborne on a cold, dismal, December day with winds of 40'M.P.H. on a field riddled with alternate layers of ice and mud. After one play our uniforms were filthy. We gained a great psychological edge when coach Harold Longworth produced fresh, dry sweaters at half-time - completely demoralizing the opposition. We won fairly easily although and score was close. The singing of dirty ditties and the rancid odour of stale cigar smoke pervaded the atmosphere of I Timmy Garton's old bus on the long bumpy ride home. Little did we realize at that moment of great emotional triumph that in less than two years nearly every one of that team would be a member of the Armed Services and that four of its most prominent members, Sandy Colville, Sid Rundle, Bill Hutchinson and Coach Harold Longworth would never return - killed in the service of their country during the massacre of the 2nd Great War. These then are my most poignant memories of B.H.S. - a school of which I am proud to be a grateful graduates. K.W. Slemon M.D.