Wondering what to do with a small box full of letters and photos to do with Clearwater has the daughter of a former teacher wishing there was a museum in this community.
Edith Bowles (later Benwell) taught at what likely was the only school in Clearwater during the 1944/45 term, according to her daughter.
She is believed to have lived in a teacherage in the schoolyard. She had a class of 36 students of mixed ages and abilities.
Bowles also taught English at a nearby prisoner-of-war camp (apparently she had no problem with discipline. The guards all had guns and the prisoners all had targets on their backs).
One of the prisoners carved her a model of the ship he had been in when it was sunk by the Allies. A family member still has it.
Her mother was an example of courage and determination so frequently seen after the Depression and during World War II, said her daughter.
Bowles was a victim of polio. She suffered paralysis of her right side and required an iron lung for breathing during Grades 11 and 12, meaning that completion of high school demanded real grit.
She experienced what became known as post polio syndrome for the rest of her life.
She was fortunate to start Normal School (teachers college) in Regina when she was 19 and even more fortunate to be selected after just a few months there to take a school and start earning money.
Her first school had 45 students, including 18 who did not speak English. After teaching a second year in Saskatchewan she applied for and was accepted to go to Clearwater.
In 1945, as the war ended she married her husband, who was about to be discharged from the RCAF, and began their happy 52 year marriage.
Then known as Edith Benwell, she returned to teaching when her own children were of school age. She ended her career in the late 1980s as a high school teacher.
In 1970 she earned her B.Ed. and B.A. from the University of Saskatchewan.
While she was in Clearwater, the young teacher wrote home regularly about what was going on in this
community. She also took a number of photographs.
The daughter noted that she does not have any pictures of her father when he was young, and she suspects the same is true of at least some of the students in the photo of her mother’s class.
All that material about Clearwater, now 70 years old, is sitting in a box in Saskatchewan, waiting for someone to do something with it, says the daughter.
“I was really surprised and disappointed when I was told there is no museum in Clearwater,” she said.
