| Home | Executive | Bulletins | Photos |
|---|
Jim and Barbara White
Barbara Eckersley (White) graduated from The University of Western Ontario, (BA) via Waterloo Lutheran College in the Class of 1948. In 1949 she completed the course at the Ontario College of Education and began her teaching career in Englehart, Ontario. That year she met a young man who was attending the Provincial Institute of Mining in Haileybury. They became engaged in January of 1950. Jim graduated in May 1950 and went off to the bush to earn enough money to get married. Barbara continued teaching to earn enough money to pay off her debts from university days. In her second year of teaching Barbara was in Bradford, Ontario, a lot closer to her home town of Petersburg.
On June 30, 1951 Barbara and Jim White were married in St. John's Anglican Church, Kitchener. They moved to a bush camp 31 miles north of Dryden, Ontario where they stayed until 1952 when Jim took up a position in a gold mine in Malartic, Northwestern Quebec. Once there, the local school board discovered they had a high school teacher on site. This was like finding a new vein of gold bearing ore. Barbara began teaching again at Percival County High School in Val D'Or. By this time the White family was three in number with the arrival of Laurie in 1952.
In 1955 Barbara agreed that Jim should go back to school and obtain his engineering degree. The family moved to Toronto where Barbara taught at Western Technical and Commercial High School. Jim studied and worked away from home each summer in the north country until he graduated in 1960. Barbara carried a great load through those years as the major wage earner in the family and in addition helping her own aging parents on a small declining farm.
As it happened Jim never returned to the north country and the mines, but upon graduation in 1960 took a teaching position at Weston Collegiate for one year. Then, in 1961 Barbara and Jim moved to Woodstock where Barbara taught English in Woodstock Collegiate. It was in Woodstock in 1963 that Geoffrey was born and the family became four. In 1967 the family moved to Grimsby where Barbara taught at Saltfleet High School for one year and then moved to Grimsby Secondary School. In Grimsby, Barbara taught English and later became librarian, remaining in GDSS until retirement in 1986 after 35 years in the profession.
Barbara and Jim moved to Westbank, BC in 1996 to be closer to their son and daughter. The son moved his family back to Ontario in 2003. Barbara's health deteriorated to the point that she was admitted to full-time care in the Village at Smith Creek, Westbank in January of 2008. She had always wanted to be a teacher from early childhood. She succeeded in that quest and in addition was a devoted wife, mother and daughter. Barbara is still teaching. Every day she attends class and discusses the problems of her many charges with whomever will listen.
Jim White entered the teaching profession in 1960 after service in the Royal Canadian Navy (1945-1947); graduating as a mining technician from the Provincial Institute of Mining (1950); working in the logging and mining industries and graduating as a mining engineer Class of 6TO University of Toronto. Jim taught mathematics in Weston Collegiate (1960-61), and Huron Park S.S. in Woodstock (1961-67). He was vice-principal in Orchard Park S.S. in Stoney Creek (1967-71), and Waterdown D.H.S. (1971-72). He became principal of Waterdown District High in 1972 and then in 1980 Orchard Park S.S. Jim retired in 1986 after 26 years service.