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Images courtesy of E.H.
I'd really like to think that this souvenir was from the Ainsworth school. Just three things make me question that: first, the number of pupils is so small, and (to the extent I know where their families lived) they all come from east of Ainsworth; secondly, there is only one teacher, and I believe that by the 1900-01 school year the Ainsworth school had two rooms; and thirdly, I know that there used to be a schoolhouse on the corner of present-day Ainsworth Road and Spencer Street (known as the Green school, I think), quite suitable for east-of-Ainsworth children to attend. I don't know when that school was decommissioned.
The first reference I find in my notes to Mary Herlitz as a teacher comes in 1904 and places her at the Ainsworth school, teaching one room while Silas Zuvers taught the other. But, of course, my notes are anything but comprehensive.
So — there we are, for now.
Many of these names are already familiar; only a few I don't remember seeing before. Clarence and Vivian Casper were grandchildren of Reuben Bridle (father of Edith and Blanche Bridle), who in 1907 was farming "one and one-quarter miles north of Deepriver on the county line road"; I wish I knew the story behind the absence of Clarence and Vivian's parents. I can't identify the Cooper children in the 1900 census, nor Robert Lydle.
It's touching to see Alvena Nolte there, just a schoolgirl, about 12 years old. Another three years and tuberculosis would cut her life short.
Sources:
♦ 1900 Census.
♦ "General News Items." Hobart Gazette 29 Nov. 1907.
♦ "Local Drifts," Hobart Gazette 11 Mar. 1904.
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