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Fort Kent School
Fort Kent School Reunion
June 28 - 29, 1980 by Edwin Collins
Fort
Kent School, 1952
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The Fort Kent School reunion
is a few days away. I am anxious, excited, wonder who will
be there, and I speculate how I will relish and absorb one
of the most precious moments of a lifetime.
I have a stake in this because I was in the first allgrade
classroom of the Fort Kent School. Fifty years have passed
since the opening in September 1930, and, I am sure many
of my school mates have too. I take it upon myself to commit
a few thoughts and feelings to paper for those of you who
wonder `how it all began'.
Fort Kent was a small hamlet in September 1930 when the
first classroom was opened in the Parish Hall. Father Connoir
was the Parish Priest. Until then, Fort Kent had no school.
School Districts usually had a school in approximately the
centre of the boundries. Fort Kent was near the north east
border of the Durlingville School District with the Durlingville
School 2 ½ miles south. Ardmore School was on William
Chalut's farm 2 miles east of Fort Kent. Willie Levasseur
was secretary and, I believe, Joe Levasseur was chairman
of the Durlingville School District, and, that board opened
a one room school in the Fort Kent Parish Hall in September
1930 with Lucien Landry who was our teacher for the first
year.
I attended school in Ardmore and Durlingville before Fort
Kent opened so I am not exactly sure who all my co-students
were. I recognize Leon Albert, Jean Paul Campeau, Roland
Rondeau, Gilbert and Stella Collins, Edmond and Roger Gamache,
Ovila and Roger Patrie, Georgette and Joe Gaucher, Jeanne
and Therese Bouchard, Georges and Ernest Ducharme, Roland
and Eugenie Limoges, my sister, Paulette, and Brother, Joe.
For any forgotten, I plead 'lapse of memory'.
School for the second year was in a house owned by Alphonse
Levasseur located across the street west of the present
site. This house was later moved to become the Gingras residence
a few houses north of the Legion Hall in Bonnyville. School
for the third year was a small store building across the
lane west of the hotel.
In those days in Fort Kent, you left school at age 15 or
graduated with grade eight. Miss Boisjoli thought I did
well: I graduated, and was second...in a class of two. My
class mate, Therese Bouchard, I liked...and she would have
of liked me too, I believe, if I had not teased her so much.
Fort Kent was my home until 1958. Some of my children started
school here. I was, for a time, secretary of the Fort Kent
Local School Board. Details are for another occasion.
I saw time unfold the first pages of the story of the Fort
Kent School. I am pleased to have written these few memos
on the occasion of this Fort Kent School reunion so that
you too can share my memory of `how it all began'.
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