McKEOUGH SCHOOL - MY ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

McKeough School

As I continue with my spiritual journey I go back to my early years and my school years in Chatham and the spiritual input that I received at this stage of  life.  In my elementary school years at McKeough School, each morning began with the singing of the national anthem (God Save The King- in those years), and the Lord's Prayer.

Once a week for one half hour we would have religious education.  There were two classrooms for each grade from grade one to grade eight.  The two grades alike, i.e. two grade threes, two grade sevens, etc, would combine sitting two to a seat and a Chatham pastor would be assigned to each grade.  The pastor who taught the grade four class was Rev. Leonard Trapp from the Christian Reformed Church.  I am forever grateful for having him for that school year.  I don't remember any particular Bible story which he told us, but I do remember that he made us each memorize the names of the books of the Bible.

To begin, he had us memorize the first five books, Genesis to Deuteronomy.  That was our assignment for week one. The next week he added Joshua, Judges and Ruth.  From then on it was just a few books each week.  A lot of class time was spent drilling us asking different students to stand and quote what they had memorized.  This continued until we had memorized all 66 books.  The assignment then was to be able to recite them all in one minute or less. What a blessing that was when I went to Prairie Bible Institute for my freshman year.  There I discovered that some of the students had tabs sticking out of their Bible indicating where they could find a certain book.  I believe others were memorizing some little ditty that helped them recall the names of the books.

In 1982, McKeough School celebrated its Centennial year.  I was able to fly back to Chatham for that weekend celebration.  There were activities from Friday through Sunday.  These included a dance, an open house, a picnic, a church service and I think one or two other activities.  As I walked through the various classrooms it brought back many fond memories.  One of the graduates from many decades previous, who became very well known for his song writing was Geoffrey O'Hara.  He wrote the words and music to a song made popular during World War One.   It was entitled K-K-K-Katy.  Some of his music was displayed in one of the classrooms.  He also wrote the music for the classic hymn, I Walked Today Where Jesus Walked.  When I was in high school, Mr. O'Hara came to Chatham and performed at a concert or two.  We had him for one whole high school assembly.

I felt very honored to be invited to be one of the two pastors, graduates of the school, to speak at the church service held in the school gym on the Sunday morning of our celebration.  Six hundred people, mostly alumni and spouses filled the gym.  Teachers were there and four of my eight teachers were there.  I thought that was great seeing that I had graduated in 1945 and this celebration was in 1982, thirty-seven years later.  The icing on the cake was to have my Mom, at the piano, accompanying the congregational singing.  Mom also spent all of her elementary school years at McKeough School.

My topic for the church service was to share what spiritual lessons I had learned in that school.  One thing that I shared was the fact that I had memorized First Corinthians chapter 13 in school.  I shared about the pastors that came on a weekly basis to teach us the Bible and how I memorized the names of the books of the Bible.  The one memory that I spent most of my time with was that in grade six, we had to make a copy of  The Wordless Book.
 
 Dan with Miss Reid, the grade six teacher & friends

I remember telling the audience that morning that I had only ever seen two wordless books.  One was the one I made in school.  The other one was what a letter carrier in Calgary showed me.  It was entitled What Trudeau Has Done For Canada.  I checked before the service to make sure it was safe to tell.  I was assured it was fine.  Chatham was a Conservative area, not Liberal.  At least back then it was. The Wordless Book that I made at McKeough School consisted only of colored pages.  I then proceeded to share what each colored page meant.

The gold page reminds us of heaven and that God wants us all to be with Him in heaven.  However, the black page reminds us of sin.  Since we have all sinned, we cannot get to heaven on our own.  The red page tells us about the shed blood of Jesus Christ.  Jesus came to earth to take the punishment for our sins by dying on the cross.  The white page tells us that we can be made white, cleansed from our sin by receiving Jesus as our personal Savior.  The green page was a challenge to grow in our Christian life.  This became the main part of my talk, all of which was interspersed with scriptures which supported the five colors, plus some illustrations.  The teacher who had us make The Wordless Book was one of my four teachers that was present that Sunday.  In fact, she stopped by the principal's office, prior to the service where those of us who were participating in the service were meeting for prayer.  Miss Rosalind Reid was her name and she stopped by saying, "Danny, I'm praying for you!"


I'm thankful that in my school years, the one true God was recognized and respected even if not personally received.

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