2002Gazette

Message from Alumni President - Bob Hohenadel, ('74)

Welcome to the spring 2002 edition of the G.C.V.I. Gazette! The initial meeting of the 2004 Reunion Committee was held in late March. We have a tentative list of events that will be held from May 26-30,2004. This list includes a Bus Tour of Guelph, a Coffee House featuring talent from'GC, a Wine and Cheese Party, an Open House at the school with Decade Rooms and an Assembly, a Golf Tournament, a Dance, and a Sunday Brunch. Please contact me if you can volunteer for any of these events. We are also in need of sponsors who can contribute gifts for the reunionyour company logo will be featured in our program which will be handed out during the reunion.

I would also like to mention that Marj Black has resigned from the Alumni Association Executive due to health concerns. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Marj for her ten years of dedicated service!

Gene Durrant passed away in January. He was a Vice-Principal at GC from 1927-44. Gene has paid for and presented the Durrant Cane for the past 56 years. To continue this tradition we will need to raise $7,000. If you wish to donate to this worthy cause, make your cheque payable to the Wellington-Dufferin Learning Foundation, Durrant Cane Scholarship Fund. Any donation of $10 or more will receive a tax receipt. Help me to keep the ideals and tradition of Guelph Collegiate alive!

Please continue to send me submissions for the book we intend on publishing for the 150th "Reflections". It will include alumni stories and pictures from the years you attended the school. If you wish to donate memorabilia to the Alumni Association contact us at the address provided in this newsletterwe are unable to borrow items from you.

Please continue to send us $10 for Alumni Association membership dues. Members in good standing will be offered reunion event tickets before non-members. Send your questions, comments, concerns and ideas to me at robert.hohenadel@bell.ca.

On Mother's Day in May 1963, I received a phone call from my friend Mrs. Evelyn Carleton. We attended separate schools at the same time. She went to G.C.V.I. and I attended Loretto Academy in the 1930's. We played basketball against each other and later at the Y.W.C.A. we were on the same team. She was working in the Principal's office at G.C.V.I. and she was the only secretary on staff. The Board of Education informed Mr. P. G. Reid, Principal of G.C.V.I., that he could hire an additional secretary for the office. He asked Evelyn to look around for someone to fill the position and she thought of calling me.

A lot of water had flowed under the bridge since we played basketball together! I was now a married woman and the mother of five daughters. The oldest was 16 and the youngest just five years old. I had been seriously considering the possibility of going back to work. My mother-in-law was living with us and my sister and her family lived just around the corner. They had both offered their services as my babysitters if I ever decided to return to work. I was away from the work field for sixteen years and my skills as a secretary were at an all-time low. I accepted Evelyn's invitation to come to G.C.V.I. for an interview with Mr. Reid the following day.

It was an excellent interview and it was suggested that I come in to start work the next day. Mr. Reid said we could try it for a week and see how it would work out. I agreed to this suggestion and if I didn't like it I'd let him know. It worked out very well for both of us and I stayed for 21 years. In July 1984 I retired at the age of 65, one year after my husband's death in June 1983. By the time I retired there were four more "girls" in the office besides Irene Simmons who had replaced Evelyn as Head Secretary, and myself. They gave me a wonderful Retirement Surprise Party at the Holiday Inn in June, 1984 with over one hundred former staff members in attendance. It was GREAT!

The Vice-Principals, when I started in 1963, were George Hindley and Wally Hetherington and Ross Pauli was the Guidance Councillor. The new addition and major renovations had just been completed and the staff and students were getting used to all the new facilities. The library was still on the main floor where the present Guidance Office is located. The swimming pool was piled high with junk gathered from other schools; old desks, chairs, blackboards and odds and ends. It was a sorry site to me because I had been able to swim in the lovely pool before it developed the crack. It was opened to the general public on Wednesday night for a small admission and I was a regular patron in 1929 and 1930. I was a witness to the formation of the present P. G. Reid Resource Centre, a few years after I started to work at G.C.V.I., right there in the old pool area.

The Guidance Office moved from the main office to its present location when the old office was renovated. The Nurse's office was moved down to the main office area from room 210 on the second floor. There was ample room in the main office to accommodate the Gestetner and copy machines which were moved from the run-off room located at the end of the corridor on the main floor. The auditorium was remodeled and closed in and the stage area was renovated and improved to accommodate the new Theatre Arts program on the curriculum. The boys' washroom on the lower level was turned into the present staff room and the girls' washroom became the science lab room 1. The new gymnasiums were a welcome addition to the school. It was no longer necessary to use the auditorium for basketball games or Phys. Ed. classes as has been the custom. The students and staff welcomed the fine new cafeteria with its improved kitchen and seating facilities. The new addition made room for the Business Education wing with all the new computers and business machines that were included in the set-up.

Changes were also taking place in some of the classes. I can remember when I first saw boys in the Home Economics classes. Boys cutting out patterns and making themselves sport shirts, jackets and pants in the sewing room and tea biscuits, cookies and full course meals in the cooking room upstairs. They often brought a sample of their goodies to the office for the secretaries to taste. At the same time the girls were able to enrol in the woodworking or auto shop classes.

One of my jobs in the office was answering the phone and very often I was mistaken for a man by the person who was calling. I can remember one time when a mother called to discuss a problem about her son. When I answered she thought she was speaking to the Principal I guess because during the conversation she said "I'm sure as a father you know what I mean" and I replied "No, not as a father, but as a mother I do." Another part of my job was to give admit slips to students who came late or who didn't bring a note for their absence. Sometimes I believed their excuses and sometimes I didn't. One girl I do remember very well. She lived just two blocks from the school and she often came running into the office all out of breath to say that she let the dog out in the yard while she had her lunch and she had trouble to get him to come back in the house when she left for school and that's what made her late. She was never more than a few minutes after the bell so it became her routine to simple say "That darn dog again!" and I would hand her an admit slip. She was a student at G.C.V.I. for five years and she used this excuse about once a month. When she finished Grade 13 and came in on her last day to wish us farewell she was very anxious to tell me that she had never owned a dog!

A boy came in one Monday morning to have the note from his mother approved by a Vice-Principal for his absence on the previous Friday afternoon. The note read "Please excuse my son for his absence on Friday, P.M. he kept his appointment at the hairdresser's to get an Afro!" Mr. Hetherington came right out of his office to inspect the hairdo and he said it was the first time he ever admitted a male student who had time off from school to go to the beauty parlour.

My twenty-one years at G.C.V.I. were very special for me. I made many friends and their friendship is very dear to me. I have kept in touch by attending retirement parties and showers for staff members as well as reading the G.C.V.I. Gazette. Bob Hohenadel keeps us all up to the minute in the newsy little paper. Our 1994 Reunion was a huge success and I'm eagerly looking forward to attending the next one in 2004.

As a token of appreciation for my many happy years at G.C.V.I. I left behind two special awards for Grade 10 students. The Finkbeiner Public Speaking Award and the Finkbeiner Spelling Award. The winners accept these awards at the Honours and Awards Assembly.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to jot down some of my precious memories from my years at G.C.V.I. It has been a real pleasure.

by Mel Finkbeiner, Secretary, 1963 1984