"IT'S A SHAME" SAID HELEN GAFFNEY JONES MANTLE (1907-2005)
/"It's a shame," said Helen Mantle, one of the eight Gaffney sisters of Deloro. "It's a shame that such a small community had two different schools. I don't believe it bothered me as much when I was young, as It didn't seem important, but now, looking back, I do believe it was a shame."
The Gaffney girls: ,Lorraine, Anne, Eugena, Chloe, Helen, Kay, Margie, Madge
"When you have such a small village as Deloro, and you have just two streets to walk up and down, it's a real shame that we children had to go separate ways.
"There were two schools, one that was Public and one Separate. I don't understand why they had to have two schools, when we all would have fit just fine into one classroom. It's a real shame that at such a young age and because there were only a few of us, that there was fear of the Catholic children losing any faith in their church. As you know, in Marmora, the community had at one point in time shared the church, although it was of Catholic Denomination.
Deloro Separate school
There were only four or five other Catholic families. I just don't think it was necessary to separate us. We would all meet and greet each other and then walk up the street together. The sad part was we would have to say good-bye and go our separate ways when it came time to turn to go to "our school." Doing that, dividing the children like that, put a label on us. We weren't just children, but the "Catholic Children"
Gaffney girls - Chloe, Madeline, Catherine, Lorraine, Anne, Helen, Margaret, Eugena
It was a shame, really, a terrible shame that we were treated so differently."
I remember. I hated it! The kids from the Public School used to be so happy when they returned home from school. But us........ Well you know, because we were part of the Separate School Board, there was very little money and so the Public School had much better toys than we did."
