Reflections of Havergal: 1994-2019

a few bushes on rough land facing the school. I thought “Prairies of the West,” but one lone pine tree on that land gave me hope … (Havergal: Celebrating a Century 13 ) In the years that followed, major improvements to the school’s buildings and grounds made it a majestic but welcoming place. By the time the school celebrated its centennial, there were, thanks to the fortitude and resilience of the Havergal community, new buildings, new wings on the main building and carefully tended grounds with a restful beauty. It seemed the sky was the limit.

Despite problems, the school was up and running for opening day, September 17, 1926. Betty Lang, a day girl, described “an excited mob surging from the hot, bright sunlight of the front door-step into the echoing dark coolness, the noisy confusion of grey pillars, sawhorses, and dim hurrying forms that was the front hall.” The New School had come to life. Despite these successes, budget constraints in the next 10 years meant that when Gladys Millard, Havergal’s third principal, arrived in 1937, she was taken aback by what she saw. In Winnipeg I had seen a beautifully executed drawing in a prospectus of “the Havergal that was to be” and which, I thought mistakenly, was the Havergal that was already standing! … Imagine my surprise when I saw only a long-shaped building stretching towards the east and a part of a larger building with many stones jutting out on the northern end facing west … Not a house or building could I see near the school on Avenue Road, only

Hallmarks of Havergal 1991

However, in the years following the school’s centennial, three large-scale builds, together with painstaking development of the grounds, have further enhanced the education of students and the cohesion of the Havergal community.

Laying of the cornerstone (Panoramic Camera Co.), 1926.

46  HAVERGAL COLLEGE