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While I was at Watts country school, World War II was going on. In our family of mostly girls, sister Violet was a sergeant in the R.C.A.F. Mother worked endless hours for the Red Cross. Sisters Irene and Anne were hairdressers. In 1943, Father bought H.P. Herd's store at Wardlow and carried on as a country merchant, postmaster, and telephone exchange operator until 1954. Retiring to the Steveville farm our parents knew easier days, enjoyed good health for gardening and frequent visits of grandchildren and spent much time in community service.

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Teacherage provided at Watts, Alberta
10 August 1940
Berry Creek School Division, Alberta, Canada

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Elevators of Watts in 1940
1940
Watts, Alberta, Canada

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Wartime Scapa by Blanche Coultis
8 October 1978
Scapa, Alberta, Canada

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Scapa junior and senior schools
15 September 1943
Scapa, Alberta, Canada

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Layette knitted by Scapa students
15 June 1942
Scapa, Alberta, Canada

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Blanche Coultis remembers: 'The high school students knitted a beautiful baby layette one winter and put the school's name on it. We were hoping to hear from the family receiving it. Of course, we never did.'

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Scapa teacherage
1942
Scapa, Alberta, Canada

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Coal stove in early country shools
1941
Brooks, Alberta, Canada

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Blanche Coultis remembers: 'I often talk about the Scapa coal stove I started in the dark and then left for breakfast. An hour later, the schoolroom was still dark because it was full of dense smoke. No fire burned, but smoke had filled the room. I'd dislodged the stovepipe.'

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Scapa junior school where we lived in the basement.
8 June 1942
Scapa, Alberta, Canada

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The Scapa teacherage was one big room in the basement of the junior school building. I found this abode warm and convenient, although very dusty, as the coal bin was in the basement too. Mrs Cook and I were responsible for doing the janitorial work in our respective classrooms. Hence I tended the fires in my senior room, a small separate building which had been newly painted. I shall always remember a day in late winter when Daylight Saving Time was first introduced during the war. That morning I had made up the fire in the small heater, almost in the dark, and then left for breakfast. When I checked an hour later, the schoolroom was still dark, but this time because it was full of dense smoke. There was no fire, but for the whole hour that I had been away, smoke had poured into the room because I had not noticed that I had dislodged the stovepipe during a vigorous shake of the grates in the dark. The pupils willingly agreed to wash the smoke stained walls, but we could not restore them to their pretty apple green color. The junior room pupils sniffed and called us cured hams.

As part of their war effort, the pupils in the Scapa School collected salvage, such things as rubber tires, lead scraps, prune pits, and toothpaste tubes. I remember the ants and other crawling things that scurried around in the old tires stacked in the anteroom and still get the shivers.

Excerpted with permission from Gopher Tails and Syrup Pails, by John Charyk.