BONNYVILLE – If there is one thing that Jeanine Bourgeois Tenove knows, it is that if you want to have a party – you have to plan for it.
On Aug. 20, Tenove will be hosting a get together for all the Fort Kent students she taught between 1953 and 1956.
This isn’t the first time that the retired teacher has held a get together for her former students. In 2014, a small reunion was held that brought Tenove and nine of her Fort Kent pupils together after nearly six decades.
Since then, two more class reunions have been held. But as time marches on, Tenove noted there are probably far more students out there that she taught in Fort Kent School and far less time to reconnect.
That is why for the first time, Tenove placed an advertisement in the local paper. She is hoping to reach as many of her former students to reflect and reminisce on earlier days.
“It's always so nice to meet your former students... We meet, and we talk, and we say ‘Well, we should get together.’ And so, we do,” she told Lakeland This Week.
Each time Tenove gathers with her former students it is like catching a bullet train back in time, where old memories resurface and are made new again.
“They always remind me of a lot,” she said, with a laugh. “They remind me of what I used to wear. Oh, I remember the clothes I wore. One fellow once asked me, ‘So do you still wear coloured shoes? Oh, yes.”
Students also wonder if she remembers them. “One fellow, when I met him, he said, ‘I don't know if you remember me, but I was quite a talker.’ And I said, ‘Well, that I don't remember.’ You don't remember these little things. Then he said, ‘You made me come to the front and my desk was touching your desk’,” she recalled with amusement.
“But they all remember the square-dancing lessons and they do remember the slides I took in Europe,” added Tenove.
What brought Tenove to Fort Kent all those years ago was a fortunate happenstance.
Tenove had just finished writing her last exam at the University of Alberta in April of 1953, when she secured a teaching contract to cover a maternity leave posting with the St. Paul School Division.
So, she boarded a train to Mallaig, with St. Lina as her destination. While nearing the end of the semester, Tenove was invited by one of her colleagues to attend a graduation ceremony in Fort Kent. And so, she did.
It was during that visit that the course of her early career was shifted. During this graduation ceremony, Tenove ran into Sister Agnes, principal of the Fort Kent School. The pair had a long history that began when Tenove was just eight years old. Sister Agnes had been Tenove’s principal in Falher, Alta.
“I met her again when I went to Grand Prairie in high school. I always loved her,” Tenove said with affection.
When Tenove and Sister Agnes reconnected, the young teacher knew that she wanted to work for her predecessor, but she already had a contract with the St. Paul School Division.
Sister Agnes advised Tenove to tell the school inspector that she would like to teach in the Bonnyville School Division, she recalled. “‘Tell him your story,’ which I did. And so, I was able to break my contract. It was then that I began to teach Grade 6 at Fort Kent in September of 1953.”
However, that year there were more students than expected in Fort Kent and a teacher was needed at the secondary level. Most of the high school students were bused in from outlying areas, as far as Iron River, La Corey, Holy Oak and beyond.
“Sister Agnes wanted me to take that position. I was the only new teacher who had two full years of teaching education. I hesitated to accept. I said, ‘I am almost the same age as those students’ and Sister Agnes said, ‘They don't know that, and you don't have to tell them’.”
Tenove was just 19 years old at the time.
“I accepted and after three weeks of teaching Grade 6 I began teaching Grade 10,” she recalled. “I still taught French and Religion in Grade 6 that year. The strange thing about this transition was that with my first lesson in Social Studies, I knew that I was where I belonged.”
From 1953 to 1954, Tenove taught Social Studies 10, English 10, Science 10, Physical Education and Health.
After all these years, she can still remember those she taught with and the wage she earned.
“We were four teachers in high school, Sister Agnes, Sister Edward, Philip Lamoureux, and me,” she listed. “My salary was $2,267.73, I netted about $156 a month. Board and room was $50 and so I had $106 to spend or save.”
The following two years, she taught some subjects in junior high and some in Grade 11 and 12. “I love teaching social studies, but science was another matter,” she laughed.
The young teacher also spent the lunch hours teaching square-dancing, a fond memory for many of her students.
“Square-dancing was very much in vogue,” she noted. During the noon hour, Tenove and her students would clear the desks to the side of the classroom, and she would teach them what she had learned during her own square-dancing lessons.
“It was great fun seeing my students dance to the square-dancing records I had bought,” she said, noting that the school had no gym at the time.
While Tenove had only taught in Fort Kent for a stretch of three years, she has countless memories that range from winters where blizzards blew in constantly causing a month's worth of lost educational time, to memories of catching the school bus outside Brosseau’s Department Store to Fort Kent with her pupils.
“What is heartwarming is that I have formed friendships with quite a number of these students who, by the way, are nearly the same age as me. And now I can tell them how old I am,” she smiled.
After 1956, Tenove and her soon-to-be husband from St. Paul would move to Calgary where she carried out the remainder of her teaching career.
If you were a student at Fort Kent School between 1953-56, or know someone who is, you are encouraged to RSVP to the 70th reunion celebration by contacting Tenove at (587) 575-1721 or [email protected].
