Pièce 1393 - Mission school at Big Lake that later become family home

Image shows a house with a car and Benonie and Augusta Van de Walle with two unknown priests.

Father Quevillon established this building as a mission school, opening in 1881 on River Lot D on the Big Lake Settlement just west of the St. Albert Mission. Father Quevillon was the only teacher, who conducted classes in this small mission on Big Lake Road. It is not clear what the relationship was between Father Quevillon and the St. Albert Mission. It appears the Big Lake Mission was independent. Father Quevillon conducted the classes in this school until the formation of the Cunningham Roman Catholic Public School District No. 5 in 1885, and a new Cunningham School was built. Father Quevillon would continue to teach at the new Cunningham School in the early years.

The house in the photograph that served as the first school in the Big Lake Mission would become the first home of Benonie and Augusta Van de Walle in 1919 and in 1937 became the home of the Sommers family who took it apart and rebuilt a home using some of the lumber.