and “Students had to bring their own desk or table from home. David, Ken, and myself were all going, so our family brought in our old kitchen table from home and that is where the three of us sat. The teacher sat up at the front of the room on the podium formerly allocated for the judge." (27)

Cyrill MacDonald, was the first teacher at the high school, and was followed by Jean MacEwen. Joe O’Hanley, the next teacher, was a local young man from the community. Daniel Mullin was the next teacher. He was prominent in sports, and had been a boxer. He wasn’t at the high school very long. The Second World War came along and he enlisted. The day he left the school many former students” recall that he went in his uniform, shook hands with them, and left to go overseas.

Daniel Mullin was replaced by a Miss MacEwen. Danny MacDonald was the next teacher, who came to be known as “Danny the teacher.” He came to stay in St. Peters to teach for a year. Sixteen years later he had become a pillar of the community and according to Frank Ledwell, “had a phenomenal and consistent success rate, that many, many highly successful people owe their start to his teaching efforts on their behalf." (28) Danny, who smoked in class, was terrible at Algebra, and had to memorize geometry theorems, had developed a reputation of being able to get his students through the entrance exams, which had to be written at that time to get into Prince of Wales or St. Dunstans College.

Danny had students come from as far away as Bear River to study under his tutelage in St. Peters. Aileen Dwan, formally from Bear River, attended the High School in St. Peters in the early 1950s. The connections made possible because of the train, worked out perfectly for Aileen, her sisters, and her cousins who all attended the High School in St. Peters:

We would get a ticket that would take us five days a week on the train and it just worked perfectly. In the morning if we were not there in time and they saw us coming, the train would wait for us.

We would get there a little early, but we stayed at the station; school was in the courthouse then. In my second year there, we moved to the new high school. Then in the evening the train did not come until four o’clock. To fill in time we would go to Clark’s store and probably do a bit of sweeping or something. For this we would get a Popsicle or a bag of cookies, which we would take with to eat on the train on the way home. (29)

273