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The History of Sacred Heart School

Before Sacred Heart School had been built, the Catholic children in the area had to travel many miles to attend school. The English girls had to attend St. Columban’s Girl’s school located at the corner of Fourth and Augustus Streets. The English boys had to attend the centre Ward school at the corner of Fourth and Adolphus Streets. The French children of the area had a much further distance to travel. They had to attend Nativity School on the corner of Montreal Road and Edward Street. All of the children who attended school had another choice however. They could attend the Tollgate Public School, which was located on Tollgate Road east of Pitt Street. This school is located near the present day Blessed Sacrament Church.

The Catholic parents of this area wanted to have a school of their own for their children. They formed a committee, raised some money and for the sum of $12,000 purchased the south half of lot #10 from a farmer, Herbert Gallinger. A school board was formed which was called the Roman Catholic School Board #8. The organizing committee was comprised of the following people:

These people were also the first elected trustees for Sacred Heart School, as each school at this time formed its own board.

They contacted a building contractor, Derouin Construction Company. This company built the original school, which was completed in 1945. It was given the name Sacred Heart School. The sisters of the Sacred Heart Order were requested to staff the school with teachers. They accepted the request and the school was opened as a bilingual school to the Catholic children of this area. Two of the school board members were a Mr. Robinson and Mr. Hector Gervais. Mr. Gervais later worked as a maintenance electrician with the school board.

In 1949 more land was purchased from the Church of England for expansion. Because of a high enrollment an addition was added to the original school. Then in 1955 another addition was made to these buildings.

In 1956 the English parents of this area wished to have their own school. The French section then purchased property on Sunnyside Avenue and built their own school. It was called St. Gabriel School. Between 1956 and 1957 the change over was made. The French children moved to St. Gabriel School and the English children remained at Sacred Heart School. In 1959 the Cornwall Separate School Board took over the management of approximately thirteen small school boards in the area. The board, which operated Sacred Heart School, was included in this reorganization. In 1969 the school board was reorganized again to include Lancaster, Alexandria, Chesterville, Iroquois and all Catholic schools in the city of Cornwall.

Because of many families moving into this area there arose a need for a much larger building at Sacred Heart School. In 1963 a new wing was added to the three older buildings. On September 8th 1964 the new addition was opened and on October 28, 1964 it was blessed by Bishop Plourd. In order to build this new addition, the school board had to purchase two properties to the South of the old school. These properties were purchased from Mr. Amelott and a Mr. Lapierre. The cost of the new structure was $888,000. Noel Couture was the local building contractor who completed the job. In 1994 two permanent portable classrooms were added to the northwest corner of the school. They were joined to the main building with a hallway. The exterior of the older parts of the school were covered with steel siding and new windows were added. The hallways in this older section were all resurfaced.

In the beginning the school was a kindergarten to grade eight school. Until Bishop Macdonell opened, Sacred Heart remained such a mix. With the opening of Bishop Macdonell in 1967 it became a kindergarten to grade six school. It remained so until the board repatriated the grade seven and eight student to their home school in 1985.

During the 60’ and 70’s Sacred Heart School boasted many wonderful sports teams. The opening of school in September was the advent of the tackle football season. Students from grade 2 to grade 6 took part in an organized tackle football league. Uniforms were old cast off jerseys donated by the Cornwall Minor Hockey system. The only condition was that we remove the logo on the front of the shirts as had been requested by the sponsors. The best of the shirts were reserved for the traveling school team. A contest to come up with a team logo was held and a Beavers logo designed by Billy Filion was judged the winner.

Thus the Sacred Heart Beavers were born. The referee squad was made up of responsible grade 6 students.

After school a team of grade 5 and 6 students competed against several other schools in the board with a champion being declared each year. In 1977 Stewart Baker, owner of the Squire shop purchased a set of modern jerseys for the school football and hockey teams. In appreciation the team was renamed the Sacred Heart Squires. Many years later the school team was renamed the Sacred Heart Hornets, a name they still go by today. Several other sports were played through out the year following the same format.

Ice hockey for the boys and broomball for girls were very popular winter activities. Also in early spring mixed floor hockey took over the students interest. Later in spring softball and lacrosse were the sports of great interest.

Come spring the various winning teams of each sport were awarded trophies. In the beginning the trophy’s were made from javex bottles and handy items. With the arrival of a Mr. Menard Trophy Day took on a whole new meaning. He had several trophys rebuilt from cast off bowling treasures. Ex Cornwall Royals' hockey players, home from their NHL teams, were invited to present the hardware. Billy Smith of the New York Islanders and Richard Brodeur from the Vancouver Canucks were two of the players who graciously accepted the invitation. Bob Kilger, an NHL referee at the time, also presented the trophies one year.

That day always held a great deal of anticipation for the young athletes regardless of who the presenter happened to be.

In the middle sixties the teachers and parents built a rink with high boards and lights in the back yard. This rink was the focal point for the neighbourhood students well into the evening. The lights were on a timer and stayed on until 9:30 every evening. During the school week every Wednesday afternoon was free skating at Sacred Heart School. Rink building was a cold task and one that required an innovative technique. A Mr. Daigle and a Mr.Ouimet decided one cold evening to get a head start on the rink for the following day. Their plan was to fasten the two inch fire hose to the light pole, aim the water at the rink and head home for a cozy evening. Much to their dismay when they arrived early for work the next morning they found the city crews busy at work blocking off the surrounding streets. The hose had flooded the streets and was creating a traffic hazard. So much for easy rink building. In early November the halls in the older section of the school were covered with a carpet and benches were lined along all of the walls. Then right after lunch on Wednesdays the whole school, students, teachers and principal donned their skates and headed out to the rink for an afternoon of exercise and fun. Older students always helped tie skates for the little ones.

Another great school adventure during these years was the annual summer Field Day at Woodlands beach. Seven or eight yellow school buses would transport the whole school to the beach for a day of competitive activities. Parents and teachers would score each activity and winning teams would be declared at the end of the day. Grade 6 students acted as the captains and teams were made up of kindergarten to grade six students.

With the arrival of Sister Ruth Vaughn in the 70’s a folk group was formed. Cable eleven, the local TV provider, was putting together a one hour program on the church folk groups in the city. She gathered together a group of interested students, convinced Mr. Ouimet to come along and play his guitar and got one song ready for the taping. When the show was over she wondered if perhaps the group could do a mass for the congregation at Blessed Sacrament Church. The pastor at the time, Father McPhail, thought it was a great idea. The group played for the 7:30 mass on Saturday night for the next thirteen years. They would practice twice a week at the school and as the years went by, interested students were given guitar lessons and when playing well enough would join the folk group as instrumentalist. At various times the group boasted ten or more guitar players.

During the seventies another interesting project took shape at Sacred Heart School. Shortly after the rink started to melt and the Wednesday free skating ended, Option Day would begin. For an eight-week period in the winter the grade three to six students signed up for an option of their choice. Once a week for two hours, they would go to the option of their choice to learn a skill provided by teachers and parents. They could choose from a variety of different classes. Woodworking, sewing, knitting, aerobics, chess, guitar, electronics, singing, painting, stamp collecting, model building, arts and crafts, bridge etc. Teachers and students looked forward to these afternoons eagerly.

Sacred Heart also was proud of the cheerleading team. Under the supervision of Miss Henderson, a team of grade six girls practiced their routines and then accompanied the school teams on their road games. They usually created a stir as they were the only school with a cheerleading team that followed the boys school team.

During Holy Week a series of plays were always performed. The older grades preformed a series of five plays. Palm Sunday, The Last Supper, The Garden, The Crucifixion and the Resurrection. This time of reverence and remembering was very special.

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With the return of the grade seven and eight students in 1985 the character of the school changed. Single day tournaments replaced the All Star Traveling teams of the early years.Holiday dances became a very popular way of celebrating special days. Fifty-eight years after opening, Sacred Heart is a kindergarten to grade eight school with an enrollment of 390 students. Hundreds of children from the neighbourhood owe their wonderful foundation to the dedicated and caring staff members that have staffed Sacred Heart School for so many years.

Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Separate School has been a cornerstone of Catholic education for Cornwall's north end students since 1945.

History of Sacred Heart courtesy of :

Brian Ouimet and Hubert McDonell.