Early teacher Miss Bessie Ridler lives well beyond her years

by Stan Nowak
This article was first published in the May 7, 2003 edition of the Dundas Star News. Reproduced with permission of the author.

This past Easter Monday, I took my dog Simon for a walk through the Driving Park and up the Helen Street stairs to do a round or two through Grove Cemetery.

In the North Quarter, I came across a thin limestone tablet that was bowed forward as if genuflecting and welcoming all who pass to stop and visit for a while. It marks the grave of Miss Elizabeth (Bessie) Ridler. I stopped to read the faded inscription. She died April 21, 1903, in her 87th year, exactly 100 years prior to my visit that day. Who was this lady, and what was her contribution to Dundas history?

Between 1849 and 1902, Bessie Ridler's Private School nurtured the growing minds of the young Wilsons, Graftons, McKenzies, Bertrams and scores of others of the town's leading families who would determine the destiny of Dundas for generations.

Her classroom was a large front room of her home on 34 Hatt Street (now the address of the Ellen Osler Memorial Home). It had an entrance for the boys, and one for the girls. In the centre of the room was a large table where the boys sat on one side, the girls on the other. Miss Ridler, being the ruling monarch of her domain, sat at the head. Beside her, like a royal mace, sat her ivory-tipped pencil, which was used for marking the lessons of the day.

The typical school day began with arithmetic and writing, followed by spelling, geography, history, and home economics, including sewing. The boys learned the fine arts of the needle and thread as well as the girls. It was not uncommon to walk by the school and hear the furious scrawling of chalks on slate, and angelic choruses of "Yes, Miss Ridler" and "No, Miss Ridler." As the children grew older, school books were passed on from the elder to younger siblings.

She lived with her brother, George, in that house on Hatt Street, where she strived "to create heroic pride in well doing" in her charges. She was a little woman, much beloved by all who were taught by her, whose good-humoured face was incapable of a frown and her pleasant disposition allowed her lessons to not be soon forgotten.

She never married or had children of her own. I read her epitaph: "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." Perhaps the love and lessons she passed on to her students allowed her to do just that.

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