BEDEQUE AREA HISTORICAL MUSEUM 950 CALLBECK STREET, CENTRAL BEDEQUE, P.E.I., C0B 1G0 [email protected] Telephone: 902-887-3009 16 June 2021 PRESS RELEASE: MOVING THE LOWER BEDEQUE SCHOOLHOUSE TO THE CENTRAL BEDEQUE PARK. Summary: The Bedeque Area Historical Society, with the support of public and private funding, is moving the historic L. M. Montgomery Lower Bedeque Schoolhouse to the Central Bedeque Park where this important historical building will be maintained as part of the Bedeque and Area Historical Museum. The building will be moved this summer; it will then be refurbished and it will be opened for the summer of 2022. The Lower Bedeque Schoolhouse as a tourist and heritage attraction: After 27 years of neglect and dereliction, the one-room Lower Bedeque schoolhouse, dating from about 1880, was restored and opened to the public in 1989 as a tourist attraction under the ownership of a group of local residents and others, who incorporated themselves as the Friends of L. M. Montgomery Lower Bedeque School. A principal motivation for the restoration was that the famous Island author Lucy Maud Montgomery had taught at the school for six months in 1897-1898, and the publication of her personal journals in 1985 revealed that this short period was a significant one in her personal life since it was in Lower Bedeque that she fell in love for perhaps the only time in her life. It was with Herman Leard, a young farmer and a member of the family she was boarding with. From 1989 to 2018 under a succession of enthusiastic volunteers from the local and wider community the schoolhouse opened to visitors each summer and proved to be a successful tourist attraction. The school attracted visitors especially because of its connection with the world-famous author, many of these coming from far away, and especially from Japan. The problem with the location of the school: In recent years, with the passing away of those in the older generation in the community who had a close connection with the school, local involvement with the Friends of the School has declined. The Friends now consists of only four persons, none of whom have roots in the community, and one of whom, Mary Kendrick, travelled from Charlottetown to keep the school open between 2014 and 2018. After five years of distant travelling, Mary no longer felt able to continue her involvement, and in 2017 she appealed to the Bedeque Area Historical Society to take over the running of the school. However, the BAHS Board considered that it was not feasible to manage the school at its location in Lower Bedeque since this would mean having to employ two additional students, as well as supervising them at this separate site. The Schoolhouse has thus not been open since the summer of 2018 and if it continued to remain closed and not maintained, it would inevitably suffer the fate of most abandoned buildings in the area: dereliction, vandalism and destruction. The future of the Lower Bedeque Schoolhouse was thus hanging in the balance. A proposal to move the school to Central Bedeque: It was against this background that an alternative way of saving the school was proposed. This was to move the school to Central Bedeque where it could be operated as part of the Bedeque Museum. In this way the school would be saved as a cultural and historical structure and continue to exist as a tourist attraction. It happened that there is an especially suitable site in Central Bedeque for the schoolhouse: the Monument Park which lies directly across the street from the museum. Such a location near the museum would allow the staff of the museum to also manage the schoolhouse. It should be stated that there is a major objection from an historical point of view to moving the school: the schoolhouse sits on the very spot and in the community for which it was built in the 1880s. Moving the school to Central Bedeque would break this very important connection with the original site, the environs of which have probably little changed over the past 140 years. Realizing this, the Board informally canvassed opinion from various people, including Japanese and other visitors, and L. M. Montgomery experts and enthusiasts, and all would rather see the school saved by moving it to a new location than leaving it where it was, with the potential of it being lost. The original school site can still be visited by Montgomery enthusiasts and might even be marked in some way in future. Financing the move A major obstacle was the cost of moving the building and re-establishing it in the Central Bedeque Park, but the Bedeque Area Historical Society has been successful in raising the funding from various sources. In 2019 Hon. Jamie Fox, Minister of Fisheries and Communities, informed the BAHS that the Government of Prince Edward Island would meet 50% of the cost. Other funding has come from the Rural Municipality of Bedeque and Area (Gas Tax – Capital Investment Plan), Central Development Corporation (Bedeque Development Fund), Friends of L. M. Montgomery Lower Bedeque School, the Royal Bank of Canada, and a private donation from Rasha El Sissi and Tom Sutton, summer residents of Lower Bedeque. The Bedeque Area Historical Society is grateful to all who have donated. In 2020 tenders were called and the bid of Robert Keough Construction was accepted. Preparatory work has begun and the schoolhouse will be moved this summer, followed by structural and refurbishing work on the building. We plan to have it open for the summer of 2022. The L. M. Montgomery Lower Bedeque Schoolhouse in 2019 The interior of the Lower Bedeque school in 2019 .