My great-aunt Lillian Allan (1891-1962) had two very different stretches of teaching in the far corners of the West Kootenay region of southeastern British Columbia, separated by 25 years as a wife raising children.
Born Lillian Maude Foote on April 23, 1891 in Perth, Ontario as the second child of Jim Foote and Edith W. James, she came west with the family in 1900 as her father had started a job as blacksmith at the then-famous Silver King Mine near Nelson, B.C. They lived in a rented cabin in the townsite next to the mine, about five miles from Nelson. She and her sisters Winnie Mae Foote (1889-1960) and Gladys Edith Foote (1894-1965) attended a one-room schoolhouse at the townsite along with about 10 other students, while younger sister Isabel Bessie Foote (1897-1988) stayed at home with her mother.
Two years later the family moved to Nelson when Jim got a job with the City of Nelson construction department. Lil, as she saw known to family and friends, loved learning and was an excellent student. Upon finishing school in Nelson she immediately went to Normal (teaching) school in Vancouver, and returned to her first teaching assignment in the Nelson area a year later.
According to her son, family historian Judge R. Blake Allan (1916-2009), Lil taught at Shoreacres, Renata and Harrop before joining the staff at Central School in Nelson where she taught until her marriage to Wilfrid Laurier Allan (1894-1938) in 1915. In 1916, the family, including baby Blake, moved to Stavely, Alberta where they ran the Allan family’s general store. They returned to Nelson in 1931 when Wilfrid took on the position of secretary-treasurer for Wood Vallance Hardware upon the retirement of Alex Leith.
Son James Grant Allan was born in 1919, daughter Margo Francis Allan was born in 1921, and son Alexander Arthur Allan was born in 1925. Margo died in Nelson on May 16, 1932.
On September 22, 1938 Wilfrid died in Chicago while undergoing experimental treatment of lung cancer. His brother Alexander Hamilton Allan came from Nelson to assist Lil with funeral arrangements.
Lil proved to be an adept investor of the life insurance she received, and later with proceeds from selling the family home after the three sons were on their own, either at university or in the military. The economy was rebounding from the Depression due largely to increased government spending with war on the horizon. Lil was able to support her three sons through university, with Blake studying arts and law at University of Alberta, Jim in commerce at University of B.C., and Alex in commerce at Queens University.
With Canada at war, there was a shortage of teachers in the region because so many had signed up for military service. Lil thought she could serve her country and region by renewing her teaching career. The need appeared to be particularly pressing in isolated communities in the region which could only be reached by boat, as access roads did not exist in the mountainous terrain.
Over the next dozen years she taught in the Lardeau district, Kaslo, Argenta, Central School in Nelson, and then retired after the 1953-54 school year at Renata (which saw its end as an Arrow Lakes settlement when it was flooded in the late 1960s by the Columbia River Treaty power projects).
Throughout her life Lil maintained her curiosity and love of learning, which led to extensive travels in Europe and North America. I last saw her in a visit with my father to her at the Willowhaven Nursing Home six miles north of Nelson.
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