During the winter the settlers felled some good standing trees for a new school building. Since the immigrants were quite handy with an axe they hewed the logs and in the spring of 1902 they completed the log building. The roof was covered with shingles that had been split from blocks of wood. The spaces between the logs were filled with clay which was easy to get. This school was named Kolomaya and it served the community for many years. On arrival of new immigrants, the number of children increased to the extent that our school became very crowded.
Illustration: Men raising a log school.
I believe it was in 1903 that we were able to get a Ukrainian school teacher - Wasyl Zaporzan. The salary was raised to $35.00 a month. He felt that this amount was too small to sustain him so he started a store in order to make a little money on the side. Since he lived in a small room he could not have much stock. We believed that he was making about $2.00 a month. However, some people thought he was making as much as $4.00 and many envied him but since he carried out his teaching obligations satisfactorily they couldn’t very well prevent him from moonlighting. Later he taught in other schools and became the owner of a general store in Gilbert Plains. He took an active part in local school and church activities.
Illustrated online edition. The memoir text follows the 2011 copy compiled by Rene Nicholas Bilodeau.
