Prince Edward Island
 | J. Russell Leard |  |
 The late Russell Leard was proud of his teaching career. He commented before his death in 1993, that it was demanding but fulfilling. One of his favourite students at Spring Park School in Charlottetown, was Milton Acorn, The People's Poet. This is his story told in his own words, ca. 1991. I was born in Souris, March 22, 1904. My mother was an Ayers from Union Rd. She had taught school a number of years. She taught at Annandale, among other places.  Annandale School - spring 1897 My father had learned tailoring when he was 16 in Tryon where he was born. He walked through the woods when he was 16 to Crapaud and learned the trade there and then worked in Callbecks in Bedeque for a number of years. He went to New York to learn the cutting business at the John J. Mitchell cutting school. He came back to Souris in 1898 and started tailoring. I think his first little place was originally occupied by Herb Acorn. He later moved to what was and known as the three-suit building. Matthew and McLeans owned it and had caskets upstairs. Downstairs was the law firm of Fraser and McQuaid. My father died in 1927. I was principal of the school at the time, the Souris High School. We kept the business going. We got a tailor in, a Rogers who came from Crapaud. He stayed with us for a number of years. Gradually the tailoring petered out and we went into the men's wear. My brother Ray died and his widow kept the store open. She has two boys; Boyd works at the Radio Shack and Waldron in the store. As a child, there was not much skating. There was a rink up south of the Mounties station. I can remember being there at times but it petered out. We also skated at Norris Pond. That was the place where sand was fairly heavy and they used to shovel that and send it by rail over to Amherst, N.S. for sand blasting. There was a lot of sand exported that way. They tried making glass with it but they never succeeded. It's a wonder the sand wasn't exhausted. It was a good place to swim, too. Then on the other side of it there was a rifle range.  The Rifle Range - ca. 1900 Before World War I, Souris and Montague had a Military Battery between them and during the war there were a number of people from Souris killed - two chaps I remember were McVarish and Edison Conroy. About 1929 they decided that they would have a Battery located in Souris. Lt. P. A. MacLellan was the officer in command and they drew up a list of officers who were commissioned. There was Jim Brennan, Russell St. John, and myself. Dear me, I'm forgetting the rest. The range at Norris Pond was just a range for rifle shooting. On the third floor of the school, when I was cadet instructor, I had a little bit of a rifle range. We had the windows darkened and some junk at the end. They shot .22 ammunition and it was a dangerous business because an odd bullet could go through a window. The hill goes up there you see, and farmers from town could have been shot. They had a course in 1929 on the second floor of the school, in the principal's office. There were no lights in the school at that time so they brought in some electric current. The military authorities weren't satisfied with the black board space on the west side so they went to work and put up beaver board, sanded it down, caulked it, and painted it to make more space. The N.C.O. would come in there and thought it was a great thing to sit in the principal's room and be able to smoke. Some of the officers didn't pass their examination and our commissions were cancelled and that was the end of the Battery. On May 2nd, 1916, part of the 105th. was stationed on Main St, under the command of W. E. Hardy. They were in barracks down at the comer of Chapel and Main Streets. The place has since been demolished.  Souris High School I taught school up at Carleton for two years, next to Borden. Then I went back to Prince of Wales for a third year and taught in Souris School from 1926 to 1934. I was in Charlottetown as principal of Spring Park School until 1936. I took some more education at Queens College and took my B.Com. in 1939 at Kingston, Ontario. It was rated pretty highly. My class of students were practically from all over Canada since few colleges gave a Bachelor of Commerce. I married a Lowther girl from Rice Point and we had one daughter. I used to grow roses - that's one of my hobbies. After my wife died, I used to make candy sometimes and take it to people in Nursing Homes. So now I'm in one myself. I got involved in sports when I was teaching in Souris. I had a young fellow by the name of Raymond Donahue. His father had been a champion athlete at McGill for four consecutive years. He became a doctor and married a Mullally from Souris West. We used to have athletic contests in Charlottetown and some of the lads I had in school took part in it. Mary McLean, who would be first cousin to Adele McLean, led all entrants from Kings County at Prince of Wales one year. The first female principal of the Souris High School was Florence Vickerson. I had great satisfaction in seeing pupils getting along well. I was with an Insurance Company for a year. I worked at the income tax office for many years. For two-year terms I was with the Provincial Government in the Sales Tax office until I retired in 1969. That's when they revamped their assessment of all the province. The Provincial Government collected all the local taxes for the towns and turned it over to them and collected the Provincial tax, which you undoubtedly encountered. It was interesting in the income tax office but you had to keep your mouth shut. You'd go home at dinner time and you'd have nothing to say. That's the disadvantage of it being sworn to secrecy. I've had five operations on my eyes - the cataracts removed from both eyes and in one the cornea went. He tried twice with new corneas but both were rejected so I'm completely blind in that eye. He put in a cornea in the right eye October 16th and I go to see him on Friday. I can see a little. I see you in the distance in a way, but I don't suppose I'll ever be able to read. In Souris, they used to use oars and a boat while fishing. Russell Poole can tell you something on that subject. I think his father was one that fished that way. And then the gasoline engines came into being. About 1919 Matthew and McLean introduced a freezer down at the wharf. The bait was frozen. There were fish sent to the fox farms all over the Island. A man by the name of Mabon built a drug store. Mabon built the place and had his drug store on the ground floor; upstairs, Morley Acorn had his studio and Dr. Smallwood, the dentist, had his office. On May 2nd, about two o'clock in the morning - they used to use a church bell for a fire alarm - a little store went afire next to Mabon's new place and it burned Mabon's down and also damaged the roof of the old stone post office. The fire burned inside and out. The soldiers worked like Trojans. They had two fire engines and they weren't functioning. One of the fire engines had two pieces of wood on either side and the men pumped up and down to get the water. They had tanks scattered in about 10 different places in the town. They had another gasoline affair which was an engine for pumping out cellars and neither one of them would work that time. There was a store where the Canadian Bank of Commerce is now. Another store burnt down about 1913. They built a new building up between Matthew and McLeans and Hughes'. The men employees lived upstairs. The Stems Brothers built down at Chapel Street which was later occupied by Roy White. My brother Wendall also taught. He was at Lakeville for a while.  Lakeville School  Copyright Waldron H. Leard |