Elida Peers | Contributed
WeB次元官网网址檝e put two photos together to illustrate what it was like in 1952 for an education minister to visit an elementary school which served the children of logging crews in the remote Bear Creek Valley.
The photo at left of Bear Creek School was given to the Sooke Region Museum by Bob Robertson, a longtime superintendent at B.C. Forest Products Renfrew Division.
The photo at right, which shows Education Minister Tilly Rolston being helped to descend from the Bear Creek railway speeder by Patrick Strachan, administrator of Sooke School District No. 62, and Stan Mozol, was given to us by school trustee Ben Swindell.
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Rolston, the second woman to become a cabinet minister in B.C., a position she held through then-premier WAC Bennett, had made the challenging journey to officiate at the schoolB次元官网网址檚 opening, and clearly, her visit was welcomed by the families living at Bear Creek Camp.
Rolston had been a teacher and was first elected to the Legislature in 1941. A social activist, her innovative ideas in introducing family life education into the public school curriculum tended to be met with some resistance in those days.
Bear Creek School was not in place for long, as logging camps were generally active only until the harvesting of the regionB次元官网网址檚 trees had occurred. During its short life, however, the school provided an experience for fledgling teachers Marilyn Jackman, who had graduated from MilneB次元官网网址檚 Landing High School, and George Gurney, who went on to take other roles in the school district, including being principal at Sangster Elementary.
Though there was great interest in Tilly Rolston and her progressive ideas, we were all saddened that she passed away the following year; hers was the first state funeral for a woman in the province.
A note about Bob Robertson: While most residents wonB次元官网网址檛 remember him, many locals will know his daughter Jeannette Wilford, a Sooke businesswoman; it was Bob Robertson who was credited with saving the giant Red Creek Fir, one of the attractions of the Port Renfrew forests
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Elida Peers is the historian of the Sooke Region Museum. Email historian@sookeregionmuseum.com.
