Elizabeth Ziegler Grade 3 class 1946 Miss Uffleman

A list of the children in this class are as follows

Allen Eileen
Beare Irvin
Becker Barbara
Bishop Leonard
Blake Carol
Britton Rose Ann
Brown Jimmie
Clayfield Gerald
Clayfield William
Devitt Nora
Eby Earlene
Eckstein Raymond
Fleming Carrolyn
Francis Larion
Fuhrman Peter
Goetz Julia
Harrold Don
Hofstetter Elain
Hore Ronald
Humphries Jill
Jonas Charles
Koenig Marilyn
Mooks Fred
Miloff Allan
McDonald Merle
Martin Maryanne
Musselman Darlene
Neff Norma
Nichols Sandra
Petznick Gord
Putman Michael
Schlitt Arlene
Schmidt Barbara
Schoone Jack
Starnaman Billy
Staines Bruce
Sweitzer June
Weber Gordon
Mc Donald Cameron

Teacher Miss Uffleman, Principal Mr. McGregor.

I had moved from the Korbelas'es, at 57 Borden Ave in Kitchener to the orphanage at 22 Willow St. in Waterloo, in August 1946, and a new school from Sheppard School, in Kitchener to Elizabeth Ziegler in Waterloo, and would remain in this school and finish grade 8 in 1952.

The orphanage as it would turn out was probably the best thing that could have happened to me at the time, which I wouldn't appreciate, until the fullness of time and which over the writing of this will become apparent.

Any time starting a new school would tend to make a kid a little nervous, but starting a new school, and going there from the orphanage made me approach the situation with a certain amount of trepidation, but that was unnecessary because the children from the orphanage were not treated any different than the other children, by the teaches or their class mates in my experience. Every morning when arriving at our classroom every desk had a fresh half pint of milk on it that had just been delivered by a milk man with a horse and wagon, and in fact a couple years later the horse stampeded, and many of the boys tried to jump on it as the horse was running down Moore Ave myself included but the closest was Donald Geisel, who while trying to jump on it, to stop it , actually fell under it and the wagon broke his collar bone. I don't remember much about grade 3 but got through it OK.

The grade 4 teacher Miss McKenzie always came to school dressed in bright Kilts, and looking very smart, and was the first teacher that really impressed me. Most of the older teachers were, a little dowdy but Miss McKenzie seemed like a new breed, and I believe that she was a quite a bit younger than the most of them. Also when going into grade 4 we were introduced to Mr McLennon, the Manual Training teacher, and started woodworking, which at the time was only carving with a jack knife. There were a lot of furniture Companies in the area and Mr McLennon would call them up and pester them for any usable lumber that they might have around, so no one had to pay for the raw material that was used in making a particular project. The manual training shop was fully equipped with all the necessary tools and power tools. Mr McLennon seemed almost proud to show you the stub of one of his fingers, and tell us not to disturb any one on the circular saw, as that was the way he lost half of his finger. We were lucky at Elizabeth Zeigler because we had the full woodworking shop because the students from Central School had to march over to Elizabeth Zeigler for their shop class.

Halloween was always a great time. We would go out for hours collecting goodies. We thought that the women of Waterloo had to be the greatest cooks in the world, and I would swear it was the Menonite influence. The many kinds of homemade treats you would get were, taffy apples, fudge, and popcorn balls, and we would generally shun the store bought items until all the good stuff was gone. Some local politician wrongly thought that the people of Waterloo were tiring of shelling out , and decided to put on a program for the kids and the Waterloo Market Building and try to discourage the children from participating in the shell out. Many kids went to the Market, and then went Trick or Treating, in other words having their Hot Dogs, which were given out there, and having their candy and eating it too. The politician got the message that the townspeople enjoyed seeing the kids who were going door to door in costumes, but set a precedent and the kids enjoyed both for years.