By Garth Dymond
When St. Peter’s was established, it was a country parish. The parishioners were very much country “folks” with an abundance of country family values and willingness to share food, time, conversations, experiences and warmth. Our church was a central meeting place for everyone. It was very much ‘country.’
Just north of the church, just across 66th Avenue (now Glenmore Trail) was Milton Williams school. It had two rooms – one for grades 1-3 and the other for grades 6-8. One teacher taught all the students.
St. Peter’s was very important to the school. Milton Williams had wooden floors which had an oily product applied to it for sweeping the floors and keeping the dust down. This cleaning product had an oil base and it was kept in the basement of the school in the furnace room.
This one year the heat caused the barrel of product to burst and part of the West side of the school was damaged by the fire. In response, the school board approached the diocese to have access to the basement of the church to be used as a classroom for the children from grades 1-3, and of course we welcomed them without hesitation. It was country and that was simply what we did.