Eagle Valley School - 100 years in 2005

By Marie Sihlis

Mr. and Mrs. William Niddrie of Morley arrived in the Eagle Valley district along the Red Deer River in 1894 with 5 small children. They soon felt they needed education for their family. The older children were given instruction by their parents, assisted by Mr. L.Q. Coleman, one of the few other settlers in the district. By 1903, the main influx of settlers had started and soon there were enough children to warrant the establishment of a school. Mr. John Niddrie described these beginnings.

"I believe the Eagle Valley School was the first schoolhouse to be built west of the Little Red Deer River. I well remember the organization of the school district, and the first school board to be elected. During the winter of 1905 my father, William Niddrie, aided and encouraged by my mother who was deeply concerned at the lack of education opportunities for her children, communicated with the Department of Education in Regina to request that a school be built in the central part of Eagle Valley. The influx of homesteaders had brought in a sufficient number of children to make a school a pressing necessity. With minimum delay, the first board of trustees was elected, my father being the first chairman. M.D. McCrae, who donated the land for the school grounds, was another member of that board, and I believe that William Muir was the third. The first secretary was Walter Bates, a Montana bachelor who had obtained a good education in Ontario.

In the early spring of 1905, Bill Reed, the "barn-raiser" of known ability, was hired to take full charge of the construction. All other help was volunteered, and most of the lumber was contributed. A young bachelor homesteader, Wilson Gastle, contributed a wagon and team and hauled flat sandstone from the Dibble Spring to lay a stone foundation. Secretary Bates and I cut the logs, which were then roughly sawed by the Tom Smith mill. There was no planer or dresser in the country at the time. Even the siding was a run of plain, rough, half-inch boards, all of which had to be planed with an old-time wooden jack-plane at the cost of a great amount of 'elbow grease.' I did my share of the siding and was a volunteer until completion of the school in June.

Early in July the school opened under the supervision of Miss Ethel Middlemiss, a vivacious and efficient teacher. I enrolled in the new school, as did my sisters, Annie and Fanny, and my brother Fred, who, from that humble beginning of Eagle Valley School, was the first to reach one of the high honours the province could give, by winning repeated elections to membership of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta."

By 1958, most one-roomed schools within the Olds School Division #31 were closed due to centralization of schools and in June of 1958 the last students passed through the doors of the Eagle Valley School. This cherished building now serves as a community centre for the district.