Kind and caring teachers are nothing new in the High Country.
“I remember my first day of Grade 1 at Mercury School,” said 83-year-old Toni Welch. “My father took me and left me at the door in tears, but Ms. Pratt met me at the door and got me settled in. I loved that teacher.”
Welch was one of 14 former students of Mercury School and/or South Turner Valley High School who met for their annual reunion Thursday at the D’Arcy Ranch Golf Club.
Mercury was a community approximately two miles south of Hartell. After graduating from the Grade 1 to 8 school, the students attended South Turner Valley High School, near the present Royalties monument just north of Longview.
Gwen Schindeler got her high school diploma from South Turner Valley before attending the University of Alberta.
She said they received a first-rate education at the small school.
“Was I well educated? Yes,” she said. “I went to university and I didn’t have one second of a problem. I was 17 when I went to university, so yes I had a good education out of high school.”
One of her fondest memories was taking turns going to the school pump to get water while growing up in the Mercury area.
There were plenty of other memories, she added.
“In high school, I remember all the dances,” she said. “I remember thinking the high school needed a hockey team, so we raised money so the boys could play North (Turner Valley) High or whoever. We played on outdoor rinks and our fathers all took care of them.”
She returned to the High Country to teach in the Royalties area and then Longview School.
“When I was in Grade 12 the school division said we will pay your tuition if you come back to teach,” said Schindeler, who spent the majority of her teaching career in Olds.
Several of the students lived in the housing development for employees of the former Purify 99 oil refinery near Mercury. The development had the moniker Mill City.
Mary Christine Lund, who still lives near Hartell, recalls her days growing up in Mill City.
“There were seven company houses and 12 families in them and my family moved there in 1938 and I was born there that summer,” Lund said with a chuckle. “I remember my teacher lived in a garage by the school and she had a bed, something to cook with and I thought she was the luckiest woman in the world to have all that room.”
She has no complaints though. She sums up her school days in one word.
“Perfect,” she said.
Maxine (Scott) Buekert agreed.
“We had a hill that was just behind us that we tobogganed on and then we had a skating rink just down the road,” she said. “The Mercury Hall, which is now in Longview, we used to go there for dances. I look back and think it is one of the greatest places to be raised in.”
Of course, even in a great place to grow up, sometimes friends can get friends in trouble.
“I was supposed to pass this note in class (from Christine) to someone and I got caught by the teacher and he said: ‘What is it?’” Schindeler said with a laugh. “I didn’t tell him so I got hit on the hand.”
The other women were, Welch, Joan (Galloway) Howes, Barbara (Langill) Porter, Hilda (Sanderson) Northam, Pat (Marshman) Rutter, Beukert, Marjorie (Marshman) James, Pat (Wyatt) Schielke, Norma Hamilton, Schindeler, Lund, Lois (Coy) Little and Yvette (Chartier) McDonald.
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