Mahone Bay Old School_A Life and Times_Bob Sayer

This is a remarkable photo of a 1908-9 group of senior students: a good number of
whom were to make their mark on the school or community in the early years or
in the 1920s.
Back Row: Frank Mader ,[7th from left], ran C.U. Mader family store/business.
Win Eisenhauer, [9th from left], became substitute principal at the school.
Muriel Mason, [10th from left], a daughter of J.W. Mason, largest investor
in school debentures, long-time teacher in Digby. Claude Keddy, [12th from
left], was the new schools first principal, later vice-principal at Pictou.
Front: Clara Quinlan, [3rd from left], Mahone Bay’s teacher, vice-principal,
shop owner Pearl Keddy, [4th from left], teacher Helen Nicol, [7th from left],
daughter of T. G. Oressa Ernst, [9th from left], teacher.
The Early Principals
Claude Kedy: Young and Inexperienced
• A Kedy, son of James William, from Kedy’s Landing, he stayed only a year.
With a brand new school to offer, why appoint this young man, twenty-two
years old? He had graduated just a few years earlier from the old school.
An enlargement from his class photo is included below. He was a native son
returning. He was descended directly from the original Alexander Kedy who
settled in Mahone in 1754.
The Bridgewater Bulletin, on April 23rd, page 4, reported his attendance at
his mother’s funeral: ‘Claude Keddy [notice the double ‘d’ spelling-Kedy and
Keddy versions were often used] arrived home from Truro on Tuesday….
..death of Mrs. Emma [Mader] Keddy…survived by three children…Claude Keddy
presently attending the Truro Academy [normal school/teachers’ college
student or high school teacher? His age suggests he may have taught for a
year or two, but the phrase ‘attending Truro Academy’ is ambiguous]…’
• The Provincial Superintendent and the Regional Inspector both refer
in their annual reports to the desperate shortage of qualified teachers in
general, and of men in particular. Not only was the pay poor, particularly for
a married man with family, but the able bodied were going to war in droves.
Women were still struggling to be recognized as potential principals.
Superintendent’s Annual Report to Legislature for 1912-13, pages XV-XVI
‘Teaching does not pay as well as others…this has led to relatively few males in the
profession.”
Same report, page 51, of Inspector [Lunenburg-Queens] MacIntosh’s report
‘..The scarcity of teachers was greater than ever and made it difficult to fill the schools.’
• The trustees spent valuable time trying to persuade the veteran Mr.
Maxner to stay on.
Staff Changes for September 1914
Bridgewater Bulletin, June 30th 1914, page 5
‘Principal Maxner and Misses Minnie Nicol and Lois Kennedy have resigned from
the teaching staff of the Academy, the latter after twenty years of service on the staff.
In the new Academy, the present primary will be divided into two rooms, Miss Jessie
Fancy the kindergarten and Miss Reta Hamm the primary…Miss Alice Veinotte
takes Miss Nicol’s room, Miss Muriel Bruhm becoming vice principal….. There has
been no principal engaged, the school board having asked Mr.. Maxner to reconsider
his resignation.’ The efforts to keep Mr. Maxner failed, and the Mahone News in
the August 4th edition of the Progress paper, page 4, announced:
‘The School Board have engaged the services of Claude Kedy to take charge of the
advanced department.’
He came from a local family and had been a student. He had little or no
teaching or administrative experience!
The circumstantial evidence of Claude
Kedy’s youth and inexperience, and the fact
that he was ‘engaged to take charge of the
advanced department’ (the notice does not
say he was engaged as principal) suggests
an interim, temporary appointment.
Muriel Bruhm, the vice-principal probably
helped hold the fort. Her family was to have
a long involvement with the school. [see
photo and story below]
Photo of the teenage Claude Kedy is an enlargement
from ‘Young Guns’
The Bruhms, Christmas 1914
The fine photo below - it really is a reflection of time, occasion and place
- was taken at Christmas, 1914. Harriet Bruhm had it taken to send to her
husband, Albert, who was with the Canadian forces overseas. Albert was the
brother of Sam Bruhm, grandfather of Fred Jnr. [the marathon runner], Bev
[the badminton player] and Jerome [ The Track Hall of Fame inductee].
Harriet’s niece, Muriel, was vice-principal at the school at the time of the
photo. Harriet, in conjunction with Rev “Ned” Harris wrote a history of
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