She ran the school from 1960 until it closed in 1974.
“We were down to about five students by that time, so I was transferred to the public school board along with my remaining students. It was then I realized that our Catholic schools were markedly different. The children at St. Pat’s had formed a family, a community, because they had their Catholicity in common,” said White.
White said the children had a close connection with the church and its pastors. At Christmas, they looked forward to setting up the Nativity scene and performing a Christmas pageant. And she chuckles at the memory of Fr. John Maskey and his big, black Labrador retriever.
Because the community was so small, White said it took a lot of commitment from the parents to keep the school viable. One town resident told her she wouldn’t send her children to the Catholic one-room school because “it was no good.” But White says many of her graduates went on to become nurses, social workers, teachers and managers of national and international companies.
White, who retired in 1984, remains active in Kearney’s civic and Church community. Next July there’ll be an alumni reunion. She expects lots of laughs as her former students recall precious days in the one-room schoolhouse.
(Williams is a freelance writer in Markham, Ont., and author of Memories of the Beach: Reflections of a Toronto Childhood.)