Blumenort blasts from the past

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/05/2016 (2886 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

What happens when a time capsule is hidden and those supposed to unearth it do not know of its existence or cannot find it?

The answer is simple: not a thing would happen, and that would have been the fate of two time capsules shrouded from view in Blumenort School if not for some fortunate discussions in the lead-up to the school’s 50th anniversary.

This tale begins on the wall of the school itself. Embedded in the brick of the K-8 school’s northern wall was a datestone indicating when the school opened: 1965. The school wanted it preserved as a keepsake since the school’s under construction two-classroom addition would cover that wall.

Little did they know there was more to be seen.

A parent of a Blumenort student just happened to have a conversation with a grandparent who knew there was a time capsule behind the brick, and she informed the teacher.

Principal Dave Schettler said the construction workers looked once and couldn’t find anything, but the parent was adamant something was there. They searched again and, sure enough, they found that box—and they got to it just in time. The school’s permanent addition would have made that box next to impossible to dredge up.

“They were digging. There was tar, there was a little bit of everything else there that they had to get through, and all of a sudden they heard ‘clunk,’ recalled Schettler of the discovery a few months back. “That time capsule took a beating on the outside but the content from the inside was still in pretty good shape.”

Finding one time capsule would have been impressive enough, let alone two.

The Grade 9 graduating class of 1991-92 decided to pack a trunk with goodies before they left for high school in Steinbach. They wanted their time capsule, left in the crawl space underneath the school, to be opened a decade later, but that never happened. It is believed school staff at that time couldn’t find it.

Hearing of the 50th anniversary celebrations being planned this June, Jennifer Penner, now a Grade 2 teacher at the school, mentioned that chest that couldn’t be found. The search resumed and last week the trunk was located in the back corner of the basement—a quarter of a century later.

She had good reason to believe it existed. She was part of that Grade 9 class that filled the trunk with goodies.

“We were kind of told that no one could find it, so it never really crossed my mind until we had talked about the 50th anniversary and the other (capsule) being found,” she recalled. “I just said, ‘Yeah, we did one, it’s in a blue trunk,’ and then magically it came up.”

The public at large can soon see what’s been uncovered from those time capsules.

Blumenort School will commemorate its 50th anniversary with a come and go event open to the public Thursday from 4:30-5:30 pm. The public is also welcome to attend the school-wide assembly if they cannot attend the evening engagement.

There will be unearthed treasures, a chance to reconnect with former classmates and teachers, browse old yearbooks and hear from guest speakers—one of whom will be former Blumenort student Royden Loewen, chair in Mennonite Studies at the University of Winnipeg.

“The community is ready,” said Schettler. “They’ve been hearing little bits about this taking place, and it’s pretty amazing.”

The school’s history runs 50 years, when a three-room school replaced a structure 65 years old, reads an issue of the Carillon News from September 1965 concealed in that first capsule.

Various additions to the school have occurred since. Penner remembers she would wear mittens in the winter while in the school’s junior high wing, which was a bunch of portable classrooms, but those buildings would eventually be replaced with permanent ones. Another addition is presently under construction, two new kindergarten classrooms that will be ready this fall.

The infrastructure has certainly evolved over time, but so has the student population, growing over the years, with just over 400 names in their student body today.

Decades have passed but that doesn’t mean the character of the school has changed—and that’s a good thing, says Penner.

A former student and now teacher in Blumenort, she married a Blumenort boy a year after high school and a year after that made the community her home.

“Everybody still knows everybody,” said Penner. “I could be mowing my lawn on a Saturday and have five students walk by, present and post, and say, ‘Hi, Mrs. Penner.’ That’s just the way it is here and that’s always how it is, it’s always been that way. The teachers still care about the students and they still want them to be the best that they can be.”

A new time capsule, with contributions from each class, will be sealed at this week’s celebration—but this one will be locked away above ground, taking a page from Woodlawn School in Steinbach which kept their new capsule, shut in 2014, in a place where it is always visible.

The memories stored this time around in Blumenort hopefully won’t be forgotten.