Mahone Bay Old School_A Life and Times_Bob Sayer

Mr. Mosher’s Senior Classes, 1946 Photo Courtesy Agnes Croft-Whynott
Back Row: Verbina Langille, Mergarite Dogget, Viola Veinot, Dorothy Eisnor,
Esther DeLong, Doris Fancy, Betty Walsh.
Middle Row: Phyllis Whynacht, Betty Hamm, Anne Hirtle, Helen Mader
Margarite Knickle, Theresa Deveau, Grace Young.
Front Row: Richard Monroe, Vernon Hirtle, Unknown, Alec Hirtle, Mr. Mosher.
Esther DeLong [from New Germany] and Theresa Deveau [from the French Shore,
near Barrington] had come to town with parents attracted by the wartime boom.
Betty Walsh [top row, far right] would stay on another year to graduate, go to Normal
College and come back to teach at the school. She stayed in Mahone Bay for a long
and distinguished career as classroom teacher, reading specialist and music teacher
[taking over the Glee Club when Mrs. Oxner retired.] She was a student council
leader, active in drama and glee club
Their graduation ceremony, June 22/46 was outdoors, and their party-reception-dance
was on the upper floor of Ali Minard’s Store: the building, next to Mader’s Wharf,
was later Dorothy’s Hair Salon for years.
When the Board accepted H.V. Corkum’s desire to return for September 1946, Percy
was probably quite content.
• He had an original sense of humor as well as a fiery temper. Irene Nauss [Whynott]
remembers the smokers being caught once by Percy. They denied smoking.
• He went on to a successful career with the Municipality of Lunenburg, being a
principal and then Sub-System Supervisor. A colleague was Earl Langille. Two Bay
Boys running the system!
• He lived in Mahone Bay and was a devoted Lion, serving in many capacities,
including the presidency of the Mahone Bay and Area Lions Club.
The School Supports The War Effort
The immersion of the students and staff into the war effort was extraordinary. The
focus was daily. There was a home front camaraderie that made people work hard to
support the was effort.
A page from the Highlight of 1940-41 gives an indication:
Canadian Fund for Air Raid Victims, The Spitfire Fund, Knitting Scarves and
Sweaters for Red Cross, Buying V-Crests. Sale of 15000 Bookmarks by High
School Print for the Queens’ Canadian Fund.
The effort was endless. Shortly after graduating Bill Hirtle, [son of Warren, the
ex school board member and mayor and owner of Hirtle’s Store, and Merna, the
Women’s Institute and Home and School activist], proudly bought a War Bond for
which he had worked hard.
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Principal Mosher said he knew they were and had come to have a cigarette with them.
And he did!