The Homecoming
It caught me completely by surpriseâŚ
On a trip with my brother Colin in the spring of 2004 to visit friends in Saskatchewan, we drove over to Radville to visit the graves of J.C. and Myrtle Bailey who are buried there. Afterwards, we went across the river to where the campus of Radville Christian College had been situated. The Administration Building was the only College building left standing. It had been revamped since the time I knew it and adapted to the uses of the present owners, but it was unmistakably the âAdmin Buildingâ. As I was looking at it through the bushes, I felt the hair on the back of my neck start to rise and I found myself taking short breaths to control my emotions. My eyes filled with tears as the sight of that old building drew me back 48 years to my arrival at the school where my present life had started.
âŚIt was a moment that seemed to go on forever.
Actually, my present life had really started in January 1956 when Mr. J. C. Bailey, a minister in the church my family belonged to and a family friend accepted a dinner invitation from my mother when he was in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario holding a gospel meeting. At some time during dinner, he looked at me with that intense direct look, which those who knew him will remember, and he said: âVirley, you should go to schoolâ. I was caught off guard. I told him that I had always wanted to finish high school, but since my father had died, I was needed to help support the family. I had been working since I had quit high school at age 14. I first worked with my father on our farm near Thessalon Ontario and then when we moved to the Sault when I was 16, I had worked at various (mostly manual labour) jobs before getting a permanent job at the Algoma Steel Corporation in March 1955.
Well, JC started to explain how it could be done. He said that I should go to Radville Christian College in Saskatchewan, because I would be among Church people, some of whom were relatives or family friends so that I would not feel out of place. Perhaps the clincher was that since Saskatchewan did not have Grade 13, I would finish high school a year earlier than if I stayed in Ontario. He suggested that our family would be taken care of because my brother Jerry, who was just finishing high school, could help support the family and my mother could get motherâs allowance to help with expenses.
I was able to save enough money for board and tuition in time to start Radville Christian College (RCC) in September 1956, at age 20. I remember the first time I saw the Administration Building. I had heard so much about RCC and what a great place it was, but I was disappointed to find that the Admin building needed paint and looked run down. However it was the center of the school and it was humming with activity. It housed the classrooms, the kitchen and dining room as well as the library and teacherâs offices. It also housed the boyâs dormitory where I stayed. The boys âdormâ occupied a couple of large rooms at one end of the building with a few privacy partitions and many iron bunk beds. I got a lower bunk. The dorm turned out to be fine, although it was quite a shock at first.
I was put into Grade 11, which was populated by 16 year-olds with whom I got along very well. I had been given a second chance and I was not going to miss it, so I worked hard. Strangely enough, I did not feel out of place. I loved Saskatchewan with its big sky and it felt as though I had come home. I remember those charmed, golden days with great fondness.
Mr. Cecil Bailey was the principal and Miss Lillian Torkelson (Miss T) was the vice principal. Mr. David Olson, Mr. John Bailey, Miss Shirley Lewis (now Mrs. Straker), Mrs. Williams and Miss Rita Lewis (now Mrs. Davidson) were the teachers.
When I arrived, I knew I did not like algebra because I could never figure out where âxâ came from or what to do with it. However, because there were few choices, I had to take it. Miss Torkelson (Miss T) was the teacher. About three weeks after school started, Miss T asked the class for the answer to an algebra question she had put on the blackboard. I had an answer, but I waited because I felt out of depth in a room full of people who knew what x was. No hands went up despite intense desk activity. Finally, I put my hand up and tentatively gave an answer. Miss T said: âThat is correct Russellâ. Wow! That event remains an academic high point for me. After that, I had little trouble with algebra and grew to really like it.
In terms of activities, I joined everything and found that I had a small gift for acting and acted in three or four plays. Miss T was the organizer, play director and mainstay of our theatre group. I do not know whether Miss T had formal drama training, but she made it work and it enriched the lives of the student actors and the audiences. I also confirmed that I had a negative gift for choir and I think, in fact Iâm almost sure, that I heard cheers when I told them I was leaving. I played touch football and other sports except hockey. This included swimming in Long Creek, which was located about fifty feet behind the girlâs dorm. In the fall, we swam until it was too cold and in the spring we started when the water was so cold it burned. As I recall, we swam almost every day when the water was warm. In winter, we went skating on Saturday night at the Radville Arena (beyond the gaze of teachers and dorm monitors). It was great fun.
At RCC, there was a sense of urgency to get things done in spite of inconveniences. Although the school had a make-do attitude, it did not let it interfere with the standard of excellence that was practiced by the staff and expected of the students. Excuses were not part of the curriculum. I now see that this helped to instill resourcefulness and was a deliberate goal of the educational experience that we were being provided with. The students went along with it because of the caring shown by the staff. Like a family, we were all in it together, and every student was required to do âkitchen dutyâ or other essential jobs to keep the place running.
Also, there was an air of cultivated eccentricity at RCC, which was encouraged (exemplified?) by the principal, and taken up by the teachers and many of the students. They were a lively lot. For example, Mr. Olson was the official school barber by virtue of the fact that he owned a pair of hair clippers. To paraphrase Mark Twain: âHe did not charge much for his haircuts and they were worth itâ. Then there was the printing press. It was a big, noisy, motor-driven, hand-operated monstrosity, taller than an office desk and more than 300 pounds in weight. It required a considerable amount of skill, courage and coordination to operate. It was quite dangerous, but no one was hurt because it was known to be dangerous. When I was there, it was operated primarily by students and used to great advantage to print items such as flyers, newsletters and school yearbooks. Such work is now composed on a computer and printed using laser or ink-jet printers.
We went to Church services in the town of Radville across the river from the school. It was over a mile away and we usually walked. The trip was cold in winter and we often took a short cut across the frozen river. I remember mostly pleasant experiences about the walks to and from Church. Sometimes we got rides. Among the interesting extracurricular activities for many of the male students including myself, were Saturday jobs at local farms picking rocks off the fields. It was hard work, but the pay was good (90 cents per hour). The farmers liked us because we worked hard. The farmersâ wives used to feed us wonderful meals. I liked it.
At the school, we had study period for two hours every evening and I did my homework faithfully because I had the ghost of a career in a steel mill to provide incentive. The study periods were sometimes informal, in the sense that there was an undercurrent of joking and fun (courtship?) going on. The students were irrepressible and some were very good at making clever remarks disguised as innocent comments. I still remember a few. Sometimes we had impromptu discussions about religion, philosophy and science.
By the time I finished that year at RCC, I had developed a sense of what I might do in life and the feeling that I could do it. I had been given an opportunity to explore my capacity as a thinking person. I am very grateful for the intervention by J. C. Bailey in January 1956. It changed my life.
Also, in addition to academic explorations, I met people from all parts of Saskatchewan and the neighboring provinces and US states. The College acted as a center for Church life and people would congregate there for meetings and special events. Also, there was Homecoming and other alumni gatherings that brought former students back to the campus. Thus, RCC provided an unusually rich opportunity to meet people and by the end of the year I had formed a community of friends and acquaintances, some of whom have become life-long friends. During my time there, I essentially created, or rather had created for me, a whole new life.
I wrote the Saskatchewan Departmental Grade 11 Final Examinations at Radville High School in June 1957 and obtained an 87% average, with my best mark in algebra (Miss T) and good marks in history (Mr. Bailey). I still remember how exciting I found European history to be, especially the French Revolution. The physics and chemistry courses, which I took from David Olson, sparked an enduring interest in science and I received high marks in both subjects.
At the end of my year at Radville Christian College, the school moved to Weyburn, Saskatchewan to become Western Christian College. As a result of ânon-academicâ activities that occurred during my stay at RCC, I married Mavis Bailey in September 1957 and we settled in Regina where I enrolled in the Matriculation course at Regina College in lieu of Grade 12. For the record, after that life-giving year at Radville Christian College I went on to eventually obtain a Ph.D. in physics (due in large part to unflagging support from Mavis).
As the image of my arrival at Radville Christian College began to fade and I found myself just looking through tear-filled eyes at the former Administration Building, I started to think how different my life had become as a result of that year at RCC, compared to what it might have been had I not gone. I had just been privileged to see, in some mysterious way, the moment when my path had changed.