The Chalkboard

A guest blog post by summer employee, Seraphina Gilbert. We asked Seraphina to write a few posts about her favourite displays, this is her second post – see also: The Barber’s Book

During the Second World War while everyone’s attention was directed to the fighting in Europe and Asia, children were working hard on the Canadian home front to do their part in the war effort. Children would do many different jobs to help raise money and collect savings stamps for the war. On top of going to school, children would often babysit, mow lawns and would collect and sell the tin foil out of cigarette packages as metals were scarce. Children would also collect the seeds from milkweed plants as these were used to stuff life jackets for the troops.

Children all over the country were aiding in the war effort but they weren’t always doing it alone; Sometimes, schools or classrooms would work together to raise money, and  Greenway School in Winnipeg, Manitoba was no exception. In 1943, all together the school raised $5,018 for the Victory Bond drive, after inflation that rounds up to $90,000 today (2024). The school children worked incredibly hard during the war, and they made sacrifices that no child should even have to imagine.

Greenway School kept track of the money they raised as a whole, but each classroom also kept track of their individual raised funds. We know this because of the chalkboard that was found during the demolition of Greenway School in 1997. Wayne Imrie was the contractor who was hired to take down the school. While his crews were going through the building, they found a chalkboard mural that was drawn in 1943, that was since boarded up. Imrie recognized the historical importance of the board, and immediately stopped his crews from working. He contacted the Western Aviation Museum to see if they would be able to take it, but they had no room. The Commonwealth Training Plan Museum, on the other hand, had the perfect space and reason to display it.

The Chalkboard is 6 by 20 feet and it’s almost a foot thick. During removal, the crew realized that the chalkboard weighed almost a ton. It took about fifteen people to remove, and it took a lot of patience and effort as the workers tried not to damage it. Under the careful guidance of Wayne Imrie and Harry Hayward – the CATP Museum’s archivist at the time – the chalkboard was transported from Winnipeg to the museum in Brandon; it was suspended high on the wall in the workshop. It’s a truly unique and timeless artifact but why did a chalk drawn mural get boarded up rather than erased?

It’s quite simple really, someone had written “Please do not rub off” in large red letters, and that request has been respected for over half a century. The left side of the chalkboard shows Greenway School’s total raised funds, while the right side shows the classroom’s (room 12) contribution to the total; room 12 was used by Mrs. Christine Mitchell and her grade 7 class. In the middle of the mural there is a large letter ‘V’ with the Morse code symbols underneath, most likely standing for Victory. There is also a drawing of a yellow RAF Wellington bomber dropping bombs on a Nazi target. Each of the red bombs represents a thousand dollars raised for the Victory Bond drive.

After the chalkboard was safely secured, the museum began looking for and trying to contact students from the classroom. The first person they were able to contact was a man named Frank Scardina, who was 67 at the time. His first words when they told him was “Don’t tell me they found that picture, I drew that.”. Frank had apparently thought about the mural quite a few times during his life but had always assumed that it was long gone; his shock was apparent over the phone. Frank loved to draw airplanes as a kid, it was one of his passions, but he never dreamed of his art being put in a museum. He stated that “Somebody mentioned that they put it in a museum, and I said: “Oh no you can’t do that… It’s not King Tut’s tomb or anything”

Although, no it might not be King Tut’s tomb, this Chalkboard is an incredibly important historical artifact that deserves to be displayed. The mural gives us insight into the lives of Canadian children during the Second World War. It can be inferred that these kinds of activities happened in almost every school as children helped with the cause. Most classrooms likely used their chalkboards to record too, as they didn’t have the technology we have today. After the war ended, these chalkboards were erased, and any other records were likely disposed of as there was no need for them anymore. Without proper documentation, it’s very difficult to tell what happened during the war, but finding the blackboard was like finding a missing puzzle piece.

The Chalkboard mural cannot be preserved in any way other than keeping it away from moisture and fingerprints. Eventually, this mural will fade away leaving only the dark slate behind. It is a piece of temporary history that once gone cannot be restored, but until then it is getting the spotlight it deserves. It is not only being used as a research aid but it’s being loved and enjoyed by the hundreds of guests who venture through the museum. The Commonwealth Air Training Plan Museum will proudly display the chalkboard for the rest of its life and we are so very honoured to be a part of  its rich history.

Written by Seraphina Gilbert