By Madeline Kotzer
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Phyllis Ray Zado, 68, paints a picture of a serene and special place with her winding words, as she recalls herself as an 11-year-old walking through the Mossbank graveyard with her mother. As they passed through the sprawling prairie grassland, pierced by aging head stones, Zado remembers the point in her life that sparked her interest in the intricacies of history.
“We came to one lady’s grave and my mother said, this lady was both my great-great-grandmother and your Dad’s great-great-grandmother… You can imagine how intrigued a young girl would be about this. I said to myself I don’t quite understand this but one day I am going to figure that out.”
The woman was Faith Anderson, a renegade in her day who had been married three times, mothered 18 children and lived to be 98 years old. The mystery of Faith Anderson’s life would both be the inspiration for Zado’s first book Furrows and Faith and at the heart of her determination to uncover the truth about the past.
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| Capturing the morning sunrise in Mossbank on October 12th. |
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The past of Mossbank is one filled with peaks and valleys. During the beginning of the 20th century, Saskatchewan and subsequently Mossbank reached an extraordinarily high increase in population. In 1906 there were 257,763 people living in the province according to the Saskatchewan census and by 1916 the population rose by 250 per cent to 647,835.
The population surged thanks to increased immigration and favourable farming markets. As more families moved to the province the need for more schools and an expanded education curriculum grew. In 1906, 873 schools existed in Saskatchewan and ten years later in 1916, 3,608 were in operation. Mossbank fell into the Lake Johnston-Sutton area, which in that time had established 30 of the 38 school districts that would compose the area. The village of Mossbank is located in the Raecraft district and although it was not the center of this district, on June 14, 1915, the Department of Education granted that Raecraft school district be instated in Mossbank; (later renamed Mossbank school district on March 1, 1917). The Raecraft school was the first of three to be built in the village and was composed of two rooms, one on top of the other.
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| Raecraft School – “The Big School” - 1938 |
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Zado was six years old in the fall of 1949 and attended the Raecraft school, fondly remembered by those who live in Mossbank as ‘the big school.'
“In order to get to it from where I lived in Raecraft I had to cross the railway tracks, which was kind of scary,” Zado remembers of the strenuous journey to school each day. Zado’s connection with education in Mossbank spans all three schools and several decades. She attended classes as a Grade 6 student in the newly-built school of 1953 – often referred to as ‘the longest school in Mossbank’ thanks to the series of portable classrooms it was made of. Upon returning in 2008 to help her aging mother, Zado substitute taught in Mossbank’s current kindergarten-Grade 12 school.
The increased importance of education in Saskatchewan marked a time of new opportunity for women as well. Zado’s love for learning was inspired by her own mother, who never had the opportunity to finish school.
“My mom was always helping me study, at the old coal stove, we would sit there with our tea and she would ask me questions to make sure I was prepared for my exams. She told me how much she liked learning, how much she wished she had finished high school.”
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Mossbank School 1933 |
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The opportunity to finish high school and the encouragement to pursue post-secondary education are factors for which Zado enthusiastically acknowledges gratefulness. “I am glad I was born into the generation I was!”
Zado’s determination has been the guiding force throughout her life and career. Born in 1943, the eldest of six children in a farming family, Zado came into the world during a period of change that was especially important for women. Zado was afforded opportunities and rights that her own mother’s generation was not. Women’s right to suffrage in Canada was passed in 1919 and in 1961 when Zado graduated from highschool. She, along with the majority of women who graduated that year in Mossbank, went on to attain post-secondary education.
“I think because of the type of personality I was there was no way I was stopping at Grade 12… I had always been a leader, it was just in me. The leader in my groups, always sang solos. So when I got to Grade 12 my marks were good enough to get me into Teachers College. In fact my poor family, my mom worked out in homes around the town so she would be able to give me $20 cash to come into Teacher’s College in Regina.”
The pursuit of Faith Anderson’s mysterious life resurfaced in Zado’s life while she took a break from her teaching career to raise her two sons.
“I didn’t get around to solving the issue of my grandmother until both my sons were born. I knew because I had been a teacher that in order to keep myself sane while doing diapers and keeping a house and doing all of those sorts of things I had to keep my head busy.”
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| Mossbank School Grade 9/10 Social Studies Students, taken October 12th. |
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Since the days when Zado attended school in Mossbank, much has changed. Grades 5 to12 social studies teacher Arnelda Lawrence has taught in Mossbank for 22 years and notes the shift in her students' attitude and approach to education.
“I think the kids are not as worldly as they used to be. Their attitude is totally different. They are very 'all about me' and every generation is getting worse. It is all about me, all about what you can do for me, not what I can do for you. That scares me a little bit.”
Mossbank Museum’s secretary and organizer extraordinaire Audrey Tate flips through Furrows and Faith adoringly, pointing out people she has known, now captured in the stillness of glossy black and white photographs. Tate notes the difference in the education system as she tours through the reconstructed, one-room school house at the museum – holding out a thick, long piece of black leather – she explains the ease at which her and her sisters received ‘the strap’ on the palms of their hands as discipline in school.
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| Audrey Tate demonstrates ‘the strap’. |
Tate speaks about the historical changes Mossbank has experienced, concluding that Zado’s work as an author has encapsulated a growth spurt felt not only in Mossbank but also in Saskatchewan.
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Zado laughs when I ask her what the future holds for her as an author.
“Do you know something, I have never ever thought of myself as an author. You are the second person who has said it. I am an author, yeah, I am. I am an author.”
The time in which Zado lived in Mossbank, Sask. was one of change and hope for the future for both women and the quality of education in Saskatchewan.
“I am glad I was born at the right time because I would have been a very, very unhappy woman if I would have had nothing to think about but diapers and making bread. It would have been very depressing.”
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Old singer sewing machine on display at Mossbank Museum. |
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