Person of the Month: June

The Townships Sun’s April person of the month is Janet Angrave. Below, get to know more about Janet!

Q: Tell me a little bit about yourself.

Janet: Well, my mother was from the Stanstead area and my father from Bury, and they met because she went to teach in Bury. My father became a banker and finally a bank manager, and he was moved between Ontario and Quebec, back and forth, back and forth, and at that time, a banker’s family had an apartment in the bank like upstairs, but we ended up being a family of six children, and it was pretty darn crowded evidently.

I was born in Newington, Ontario in 1934, which makes me 92 now. Before I was born, my father had already moved to Cookshire to a new bank building. The family followed a month later. I was a very sickly baby. I had bronchitis all my younger life, and I guess I coughed the whole way here on the train.

So, I grew up and all my growing up years were in Cookshire. At Cookshire High School, in those days, we mingled with the other schools for things like track, a social event like a Friday night dance, but it was mostly sports events.

Q: Tell me about your career. 

Janet: I was always going to be a nurse. Nothing else ever entered my mind until I graduated from my school and I worked that summer at the Sherbrooke Hospital as a nurse’s aide, and I thought, if this is nursing, then I guess it’s not for me.

So I changed my mind that summer and decided I wanted to be a teacher. So I went to McDonald College, and they had a two-year program which they started just that year.

And then my first teaching job was in Lennoxville. I was a literature teacher. You call it an English Teacher, but it means composition, literature, poetry, public speaking, drama, everything.

And so I taught for one year. Then I got married, had a baby, taught another year because you had to teach two years in order to get your certification, so I got that. And my second year was in Cookshire, which at that time was still a high school. Then we moved to Three Rivers after my husband decided he wanted to be a teacher too. That’s what they used to do: you got your degree first, and then you took a concentrated one-year program.

And that’s where my third child was born. We were only there two or three years before we moved to Rosemere. And then, before I knew it, we were back here and he was in the Education department of Bishops. That presented me with an opportunity as a faculty wife to go to university for free.

Little by little, I’d take a couple of courses each term, because my youngest one was still just in starting school. That began my teaching career in 1969 when Galt opened. I got my degree that June and was ready to teach, and I was terrified of teaching high school kids until I realized I had two who were high school age. They weren’t that frightening. And so I was at Galt for the next 28 years.

I really enjoyed the camaraderie at Galt that first contingent of teachers we went in before the school was even finished and prepared lessons as the students came and picked up or prepared assignments. And I think it was only the end of November before the school actually opened that first year in 1969. And I really enjoyed teaching. It was a good part of my life.

Q: What is something memorable from your days of teaching? 

Janet: I had a colleague who was a history teacher, but he devised a program that combined Canadian literature and Canadian history with all kinds of activities. He asked if I would be interested since I had taken whatever Canadian poetry and literature courses were available.

And I don’t know why I said yes, because there was nothing in Canadian literature that was uplifting or fun. There were all so gloomy and set in the Prairies and the backwoods of Ontario. For years, I was scrambling, trying to find some Canadian literature that 14-year-olds would enjoy. And fortunately, they began to publish quite a bit more in the way of short stories and some novels that were fun. Nowadays there’s a ton of it out there.

I knew nothing about politics. I knew nothing about history. I hated it. History in school because it was European history, and it was so boring, you know, just memorize, take notes, memorize dates. This project was so much more interesting. It made history come alive because we did with the help of the drama teacher something called a dramatic Anthology, and they had to choose a period in history. 

Q: What is your proudest accomplishment? 

Janet: The fact that 50 years after I taught somebody I meet them in the grocery store and they say, “Oh, that was the best class I ever took!” It’s so astounding to have a student come up to you and say “I still remember that class” or “I had the most fun in that class” or “you were the best teacher.” And I think you know, it was such a struggle from day to day together to read and write and do the things they were supposed to, but to find out at this stage in my life that it meant something to them, that’s my reward.

We also won a Teacher Award, the Hillroy, for this Dramatic Anthology project that we did.

Q: Tell me about your retirement. You’ve been a long time volunteer for the Townships Sun. 

Janet: I retired in 1997. When I retired, Pat, who worked at the Townships Sun, asked me if I’d go and just help them with office work. And I said, I can’t type. I know nothing about office work. She told me to just come and open the mail and sort it, to throw out what’s not needed. So I did that for a while. And there was a person who was writing book reviews for them all the time. And. She wasn’t doing it anymore. So I took that on for a while.

And when Charlie Bury was the editor and Alan Barber was the layout person, they would get together and work on Sunday nights and then call me to come down and sit there and wait, while Charlie got an article together. And then I would proofread it. And then he’d correct it. Sometimes they were there till one or two o’clock in the morning. I’d kick out at about 11 o’clock and walk home. That’s when I started doing proofreading, I guess.

Also, I’m not sure when exactly, but it was Nancy Beatty, who was the chair of the board, who asked me to join the Board of directors. I did and I stayed on the board for at least 10 years, if not more. I stepped down two years ago and still do proofreading.

Q: Did you travel a lot? 

Janet: Yes. Once I retired, I have a daughter who lives on the west coast, so I went there, and I went to Europe with some friends. I went to the Bahamas one year, but mostly and I went to Australia because my youngest daughter, who was a kindergarten teacher, had gone on Exchange there, and since she was only going to be there for a year, I took time off at the beginning of the school year to go and visit her during her break.

Q: What do you do for fun? 

Janet: Knit and read for entertainment. I belong to a University Women’s Club book club, and we’re always reading interesting books, books I wouldn’t have heard of or read unless I belong to this book club. And there are quite a few book clubs on the computer, too, and so I just read all the time.

Q: Is there some place or some thing in the townships that you would recommend? 

Janet: The Haskell Opera house. I’ve been there often for concerts and plays not so much in the last few years, but I used to go and I always like it. I love theater, so I also love the theater at Bishop’s, whether it’s Turner or Centennial, but the Haskell Opera House is unique.

I also like the museums because here, like in Lenoxville and Coaticook, they’re in old houses, big old houses like the one I grew up in. And I would recommend the nature of the Townships.

By Noémi Blom