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Miss Mabel Beattie
Teacher Extraordinaire

Miss Mabel Beattie was born on December 6, 1882, in Ireland outside Dublin in a small town called Dalkey. She was the youngest of six sisters and a brother. In 1893, Miss Beattie and her family moved to Kamloops where she was raised. She received her training to become a teacher in Vancouver. All of her sisters and her brother became teachers as well.

Miss Beattie's first teaching position was in a small building seventeen miles up the North side of the North Thompson River. The school had two small windows, homemade desks, and benches joined to the wall accommodating four or more students, and for writing there was a small black board in the corner. The nearest house was two miles away. Some of the children rode up to ten miles every day on horseback. Miss Beattie remained at this school for two years and then moved to Enderby Elementary School, which is now called M.V. Beattie.

Miss Beattie was a consistent disciplinarian, but she was always kind and thought of her students first. She ran quite an orderly classroom. She had calm control and strong inner strength that everybody knew throughtout the school. Miss Beattie encouraged the first sewing class for girls, and for boys a model aeroplane building course, which were both paid and provided for by Miss Beattie. Mis Beattie became the principal of Enderby School in 1917 and taught grades seven and eight.

In 1934, school finances and wages were so poor that they thought that they would have to close down the school, but Miss Beattie pulled everyone through. Miss Beattie taught for 42 years in Enderby, from 1903 to 1945. While teaching in Enderby, Miss Beattie taught from nine hundred to over a thousand students which are now scattered all over the world throughout many professions. For instance, over fifty have become teachers; there have been lawyers, murses, stenographers, and clergymen to name but a few.

When Miss Beattie came to Enderby her first class had sixty-one pupils in it; her second year class had sixty-six pupils in it; her third had seventy pupils in it and in 1907, she had seventy-six pupils.

A few of the students that Miss Beattie taught in Enderby are: Findlay Brash, George Dale, Willie Dale, Walter Dale, Bill Faulkner, Carrie (Hassard) Farmer, Davie Jones, Gearge Jones, Mrs. Elsie Polson, Russel Hutchison, Mrs. Eva (Jones) Monkhouse, Hudson Alden, Edward Sparrow, Mrs. Agnes (Carlson) Johnson, Mrs. Bessie Garrat, Mrs. Idal (Robinson) Teece, Mrs. Edith (Teece) Sparrow, Bert Hassard, and Mabel Hassard. This is only a small number of names considering the large number of people that she taught and influenced throughout her forty two years in Enderby. Here are some students' names that Miss Beattie taught in her last year, 1945: Margaret Blackburn, Dawn Faulkner, Audrey Lantz, Elsie Lutz, Corinne Kope, Cleo Malpass, Peter Roberts, Donnie Green, Alvin Hutchison, Stan Vogel, Bob Worden, Joyce Smith, Cecil Sharman, David Sidnick.

Miss Beattie was a member of St. Andrew's United Church, and also a member of Sir Douglas Haig Chapter I.O.D.E., and still found time to participate in many other extra curricular activities, such as singing. Over the forty-two years Miss Beattie was a teacher in Enderby she resided with Mr. and Mrs. Bob Peel. Miss Beattie's hobby was gardening and she took special pride in her roses. She would wake early just so she could work with them before school.

Miss Beattie taught during the Second World War when there was a shortage of teachers. In 1945 one of Miss Beattie's students replaced her; his name was Mr. O.B. Carlson. A while later, Mrs. Beattie moved to Vancouver so she could be cared for by a doctor, later that year there was a banquet in her honor; however, she was not able to attend.

She came back to Enderby for the official opening of the M.V. Beattie Elementary School on November 24, 1954. After the death of Miss Beattie's sisters she sold the family home and moved to Kamloops. Miss Beattie passed away in early June, 1971, in her eighty-ninth year. "She was a teacher loved by many".

Naomi LaBelle
ALF School 1989