| HISTORY/BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH: | The Edmonton Normal School opened on Jan. 3, 1930, built by the Alberta provincial government. The edifice of the new building featured red brick from Medicine Hat and Tyndal stone from Manitoba. It would serve as the centre for teacher training in the province until closing in 1933 as a result of the Great Depression. The School re-opened in 1935 but would close again in 1941 when the building was used by the Royal Canadian Air Force as an instructional facility for the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan. The 1941 class would be the final class of the Edmonton Normal School, as it was integrated into the University of Alberta Faculty of Education in 1945. The Faculty would occupy the building until 1963, when a new Education building was opened. Two years later the old Education building was renamed E.A. Corbett Hall, after E.A. Corbett, director of the Faculty of Extension, 1928-1937, and founder and director of the Banff School of Fine Arts. From 1962-1989 Corbett Hall housed the Department of Extension, the School of Nursing and Rehabilitation, the Drama Department, and Studio Theatre. It was closed for renovation from 1988-1991 and currently houses the Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine.
Patricia May (Easton) Calvert attended the Edmonton Normal School in 1940-1941 and served as vice-president on the ENS student council among other activities. She would teach for 29 years before retiring in 1978, teaching at the elementary, junior high, and high school level, working as a school councilor, and in the staffing department of the Edmonton Public School Board. After graduation, she married Neville Calvert, who worked as a farmer and then for the Alberta Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission (AADAC). They had two children, Karen, a teacher, and Bob, a lawyer, and four grandchildren. Calvert travelled extensively, taught overseas in Ghana and St. Vincent, carried out charity work in Nicaragua, and volunteered for numerous organizations. Calvert currently lives in Fort Saskatchewan.
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| SCOPE AND CONTENT: | The fonds consists of records relating to the Edmonton Normal School graduating class of 1940-1941 including the 1940-1941 yearbook, and graduate directory from the 25th reunion in 1966, a book created for the 50th reunion in 1991 including photographs, a type written memoir by Calvert created most likely for the 50th reunion including photographs, and photographs of Edmonton Normal School (now Corbett Hall, c. 1980s-90s), from a gathering of former students on May 18, 2003, and from the 60th anniversary of the graduating class in 2001. |