S.S. No. 4 Charlotteville, the one-room elementary school house at Normandale, circa 1896. Researcher Paul Billo of Shakespeare, Ontario, emailed us this photo scan 2 Aug 2010. 

The original print belongs to his wife, Linda (Oakes) Billo, and is from the collection of Sarah Youngs, Mrs. Nelson Collver. Nellie Collver and her cousin Lena Collver appear in the first row of the photo.

Linda reviewed the original photo with Nellie Collver before Nellie died, and they concluded it was taken about 1896, when Nellie and Lena would have been six and eight years old respectively. Nellie called it her Normandale school picture and we take her at her word. That said, questions abound.

This is the only Norfolk school picture of the era we have seen not taken with the school house as a backdrop. In fact, we cannot be sure this photo was taken out of doors as opposed to in a photographer's studio.

Moreover the number of children in the photo and their apparent ages raise other questions. Other local elementary school photos of the era include older children, and more children.

As if we needed another question, check out the children's attire. They seem to be dressed in their Sunday best. (Compare their attire with that of the students in our 1898 Port Ryerse School photo.)

The children in this photo would have been born circa 1890, and presumably have all passed away. Our best hope of identifying those in the photo will likely come from descendants who have their own copy of this print, or photos of the same children taken about the same time.

School Section 4 Charlotteville served children living within a mile of the school. (Linda's  father attended in the mid-1920s from their farm on the the broken front road near Fisher's Glen.) 

By 1896 Normandale's heyday as Norfolk's first industrial centre was history. 
The VanNorman iron ore furnace had closed and its hundreds of employees had moved on decades before. There were a few farms nearby but Normandale was primarily a fishing village.