The fire (late 1957)

By the way, what happened with the fire, was I believe, three of the farm kids (there were basically three groups of children attending the school, the kids from the "vets", which is the area immediately surrounding the school; the kids from the Village of Deschênes down the street towards the river; and the farm kids from the surrounding farms).
As I recall it, some of the farm boys broke into the school one weekend and did quite a bit of damage. On the way out, they set fire to the school. One of them was what would be termed today as a challenged student and he stole hundreds of the big yellow school pencils all the kids had to buy and write with. On the way home, he was leaking pencils all over the place and the police simply followed the trail of pencils along the ground for quite a way and right to his house. He of course, immediately ratted out his co-conspirators.
I don't know what happened to them as punishment, but we all had to go to different places/different classes by bus, until the school was refurbished. I was in grade 5 at the time and taught by a Miss Hardy, who I remember had the same birthday as me - October 31st, Halloween.
There's the rest of that story for you, as best as I can remember.
Dave Hill


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Updated 07/6/19