Across Canada: 'Vanner' turns 100

Notes: "On March 19 [2013], Mildred Richardson of Tavistock, Ont., reached her 100th birthday. She received a congratulatory certificate from Archbishop Fred Hiltz. Richardson has spent a lifetime serving the Anglican church. A former grade school teacher, in the 1940s she spent two summers plying the back roads of northern British Columbia in a two-ton Sunday school van. 'It wasn't for everyone. You were far away from the amenities of home and you had to keep in shape', recalls Richardson. As a 'vanner' she drove one of Eva Hasell's 24 vehicles that brought Anglican teaching to rural Canada from 1920 to the 1970s. 'If your van broke down on an isolated road, you had to wait until help came along', Richardson recalls. Luckily, the big Fords were equipped with beds. 'We had a little camping stove and we ate mostly out of cans', she says. 'Sometimes we got invited to dinner, and sometimes people held canned-goods "showers" for us'. Her 35-year teaching career included two years at Indian residential schools in Alberta. 'What upset me most was that the children were punished for speaking their native language', she says. 'You'd be surprised how quickly I could turn deaf'." [Text of entire article.]

Subjects: Richardson, Mildred R., 1913-2013; Sunday school teachers - Anglican Church of Canada; Christian education - Anglican Church of Canada - History; Anglican Church of Canada. Sunday School Caravan Mission; Women church workers - Anglican Church of Canada - History; Anglican Church of Canada - Residential schools - Employees; Native peoples - Canada - Languages