Hartford School clock donated to Wilson MacDonald Museum

By Sheila Phibbs

The Haldimand Press

SELKIRK—While it is true that you can’t stop time, moments can be preserved. Such is the purpose of the Wilson MacDonald Memorial School Museum, which strives to capture the history of the one-room school house. A piece of that history has just been added to the collection as retired educator Marion Anderson donated the Hartford School clock.

Anderson is originally from Ripley, Ontario, where she began her teaching career after attending teacher’s college at age 18. After teaching in one-room schools, she applied at Hartford School just outside Haldimand when she learned it had two rooms. She jokes, “I thought it was a step up.” She admits that she didn’t know where Hartford was and when they told her it was near Brantford and she thought, “At least Brantford is on a map.”

February 1, 1944 was her first day in Hartford, which she soon discovered included Grade 9: “That was another thing they didn’t tell me,” she said. Despite that surprise, things improved and some of the highlights from her days at Hartford include teaching woodworking to the Grade 9 boys.

Hartford School taught students from both Norfolk and Haldimand, known as SS 21 Townsend in Norfolk and as SS 8 Walpole in Haldimand. Anderson was at Hartford for two years before moving to the Bealton School and later Boston. Among her many students was her nephew, Allan Hayes, who recalls his aunt bringing a radio in when he was in Grade 8 to listen to astronaut Alan Sheppard’s space flight.