TRANSCRIPT

Judy's Interview - School - 1948


Question:
Mrs. Fortier where did you go to school?

Answer:
From Grade One to Grade Four I went to a country school named Sharon School.
We lived about one quarter of a mile from the school, so in the summer, spring and fall, I walked to school. There were others who rode horses and walked, so I had company. We would talk and laugh all the way.

Question:
How did you get to school in the winter?

Answer:
In the winter, when there was snow, my dad took me to school in a homemade sleigh. It was a wooden box about 2 feet (60 centimeters) wide and 9 feet (3 meters) long, sitting on low snow runners like you have on a small child's sleigh you pull. Dad would drive the one horse sleigh up to the door of the house and I would step into it. I sat in the back on the horse blankets in the bottom of the sleigh and my dad stood up in the front to drive the horse. Sometimes the wind from the north or the northwest was so strong I could not breathe, so I had to cover my mouth and nose with my mitts or a corner of the horse blanket.
When the snow was smooth, I had a wonderful ride. Some days though the ride was not so easy. When the sleigh went over big snow banks, it would go up in the front, over the snow bank and then down and I was up in the air. Also it would tilt when one side of the snow bank was higher, so I would lean up from the tipping side until it was level again.
Sometimes I could not see anything except the rear end of the horse and my dad because of the blowing snow. I could not go to school when there was a blizzard, because we could not see the road.
The dads of the other children took them to school in sleighs as well. Some of the older boys and girls rode a horse themselves or had a sleigh. They would put their horses in the school barn.