Beiseker and Consolidation

(The camera shows a historic marker in the shape of a small school that says Beiseker School Location. The camera pans to a catholic church, and in the background, the contemporary Beiseker School. The film’s title appears: Consolidation. Beiseker School). 

(John Richter shares memories at the Beiseker Golden Years Club) 

 John Richter: Well first of all, I attended what was called the Beiseker Consolidated School. So I did not attend any of the country schools in the area, because in the fall of 1947 when I started school, we were living 2 miles north of town on what is now the Brent Smaltz and his family farm. And we moved into town in 1947 after I had attended three months into my first year of school.

(Matt Schmaltz shares memories at the Beiseker Golden Years Club) 

 Matt Schmaltz: It was a two-story building, four classrooms in it, a basement, in the basement there was a home ec room and a shop room.

(Frank Schwengler shares memories at the Beiseker Golden Years Club) 

 Frank Schwengler: When the kids came to school, they brought in a school called Lilydale. They moved a school in, and they took from grade six to seven who went to Lilydale school and actually that is where the school is now, but it was a country school that they moved in.

(Monty Metzger shares memories at the Beiseker Golden Years Club) 

 Monty Metzger: At that time, Beiseker school had two small schools. Then we were kind of split up, maybe grade one to three and four or five, so it was still split.

(Matt Schmaltz shares memories at the Beiseker Golden Years Club) 

 Matt Schmaltz: There must have been three grades in each room, I can’t recall that for sure.

(Frank Schwengler shares memories at the Beiseker Golden Years Club) 

 Frank Schwengler: They had three classes in one room, they had grade ones and grade twos and grade threes. They had the grade one class in a separate row and grade twos in a separate row and grade threes in a separate row.

(Leah Uffelman shares memories from her home over zoom) 

 Leah Uffelman: They didn’t need the small schools around, they centralized and that was the advent of school buses. 

(Monty Metzger shares memories at the Beiseker Golden Years Club) 

 Monty Metzger: The next year we came to Beiseker, they closed the school down. That was a grade one to nine or ten school.

(Jean Schwengler shares memories at the Beiseker Golden Years Club)

 Jean Schwengler: Then when our school closed down at the end, when I was in grade eight, then the school bus came and they bused us to Beiseker, which was ten miles. It was quite a change for us ones that were from grade one to eight, twelve kids to go into a school that had one grade, it was quite traumatic.

(Monty Metzger shares memories at the Beiseker Golden Years Club) 

 Monty Metzger: When we came to Beiseker, it was way more kids alright ,and there was a few fights there too, if I remember right.

(Frank Schwengler shares memories at the Beiseker Golden Years Club) 

 Frank Schwengler: It was kind of fun to see the grade ones sometimes when you were in grade three because they’d come up with the darndest things. You’d kind of watch out for the little guys.

(John Richter shares memories at the Beiseker Golden Years Club, he holds up a black and white photo of a class of students standing in rows) 

 John Richter: This is my grade two picture here and it shows the type of clothing that we wore at that time. I was in that school until 1951, when the current school was built.

(Matt Schmaltz shares memories at the Beiseker Golden Years Club) 

 Matt Schmaltz: I remember the chemistry room, that was something new for us when we got to that new school.

(Monty Metzger shares memories at the Beiseker Golden Years Club) 

 Monty Metzger: At the Beiseker school, what I enjoyed the most the one year was shop, they had saws and all that type of equipment, they only had that one year, I wished they had of kept that on. It was something I was interested in. Prose and poetry I wasn’t too excited about, or shorthand.

(Vera Schmaltz shares memories at the Beiseker Golden Years Club) 

 Vera Schmaltz: I think I enjoyed the country school more than when we came into town to school because we were all families that were close by and all knew each other really well. I think I enjoyed that more. Mind you, it was nicer going on the bus than it was driving the horses.

(John Richter shares memories at the Beiseker Golden Years Club) 

 John Richter: My years at the Beiseker school were very interesting and I enjoyed it very much and I don’t remember all the things, but I do have some very good memories. 

(the Beiseker Station Museum logo appears).