POINTS OF INTEREST: Commemorative Marker #11
Lorette Collegiate Institute / Bibliothèque Taché Library
First Teacher in the RM of Taché | “Our House Always Looked like a School”
HISTORICAL NUGGETS CONNECTED WITH THIS LOCATION:
First Reeve of Taché Signed his Name with an “X”
Commemorative Marker #11
SEE GOOGLE MAP LOCATION 
Theme: Petite-pointe-des-chênes / 1st Teacher
Petite-pointe-des-chênes
Near the eastern end of Lorette, you will see the Lorette Community Complex on your right.Pull into that parking lot and visit the commemorative marker on the northeast corner.
First Teacher in the RM of Taché
“As soon as the settlers could organize themselves into some sort of community, had shelter and the bare necessities of life, their next concern was a “School” for their children.
"Their first efforts were small log buildings, equipped with some sort of stove, primitive seating arrangements, slates and slate pencils plus a few books. Education was born.
"The first teachers were quite often sixteen-year-old girls, with no certificates. Teachers were not paid very handsomely ($16.50/year according to early municipal records of 1891).
"Probably the first school in the RM of Taché was the one operated by Mrs. J. B. Gauthier in her own home in 1862. Mrs. Gauthier opened her home to children and adults alike, and taught them to read and write. Ten years later, the first school building was erected and in 1883 the Order of Grey Nuns of St. Boniface, took charge of education in Ste. Anne des Chênes.”
Rose R. Blom, Taché Rural Municipality 1880-1980
Source: Blom, R.R. (1980, April). Taché Rural Municipality 1880-1980 (P.42). Commissioned by The Council of the Rural Municipality of Taché. Derksen Printers, Steinbach: Manitoba. Retrieved from University of Manitoba digital collections June 3, 2020, http://hdl.handle.net/10719/3055598
Rosalie Gauthier, first teacher in the Parish of Ste. Anne. She is buried in Saint-Boniface Cathedral Cemetery. Histoire de la Paroisse Ste. Anne-des-Chênes 1876-1976, P.37 https://images.app.goo.gl/zbuD4NUFZqDjHFnu7 Also see Find a Grave Rosalie Quintal Germain Gauthier (1834-1924)
“Our House Always Looked like a School”
Rosalie Gauthier (nee Germain) was born in Verchères, Québec and married at sixteen years of age to Jean-Baptiste Gauthier before moving to Manitoba in 1853.
She and her husband were the first French-Canadian family to settle in Lorette. She was the first teacher in the area. She and her husband Jean-Baptiste journeyed across the plains from St. Paul, Minnesota with the first of their fourteen children during a time of great strain on the great plains and just a few short years after the Battle of Grand Coteau in North Dakota between Métis and Dakota people.
“My husband was a builder. When we came West we had a small baby girl. We waited at St. Paul for some time until there was a large train of carts to travel all together. ”
"...When we came to St. Boniface first, my husband worked for four years on the cathedral. Then (1857) we came to Lorette and took a farm. I had been educated in a convent in Montreal. When I began to teach here I taught the children in the daytime, and in the evenings the married people. After five years at Lorette we moved to Ste. Anne, where we were for ten years (1862-1872). And then we came back to Lorette. All the time I continued teaching. When my babies came, the women of the settlement used to help me with them, until my older girls grew up, so that I might be able to continue teaching. At Ste. Anne, a priest used to teach in our house in the mornings, and I taught in the afternoons. Our house always looked like a school, with all the children about. But before we left Ste. Anne, there was a log schoolhouse there.”
W.J. Healy, author of Women of Red River, 1923
Source: Healy, W.J. (1923, 1967, 1987). Women of Red River (p.117). Peguis Publishers. Retrieved from Manitoba Historical Society June 3, 2020, http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/books/womenofredriver.pdf
First school in Lorette near the Dawson Trail. The building was then used as a seed factory for the Turcotte family but we are uncertain if this was the Gauthier’s house.. Archives of the Société historique de Saint-Boniface, MSB152. Retrieved June 4, 2020 from http://shsb.mb.ca/Lorette/Premiere_ecole_MSB152
Lorette West School (no date) by R. Goulet. See also Village of Lorette, first school. Source: Department of Education District School Inspectors’ photographs, (ca.1926-1939), schedule A 0233, accession GR8461, location: GP1-3-1-3-2, Archives of Manitoba Retrieved June 5, 2020 from Historic Sites of Manitoba: Lorette West School No. 990 (RM of Tache)
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