Olive Young
By Patricia McLaughlin
Miss Young, as she was known by generations of her students, created a legacy for tomorrow for the Faculty of Education at Western. She directed her gift to establish entrance bursaries for students aspiring to be primary school teachers. As a result of her generosity, there are now 10 Olive C. Young bursaries available in perpetuity to Faculty of Education students - a fitting legacy for a woman whose greatest joy was derived from her "pupils".
It was her experience as a teacher that inspired Miss Young's gift, as she was not a Western alumna. Miss Young told friends that she wanted to attend Western to earn her degree but her physical limitations prevented her from working and doing part-time study. From an early age, she was afflicted with Multiple Sclerosis, but she did not let her disability interfere with either her teacher training or her teaching career. She attended London Normal School in the 1930's and returned to the Chatham, Ontario area where she began her teaching career.
A determined woman, Miss Young vowed that her illness would not prevent her from staying in the classroom until her official retirement date. She lived up to that vow, retiring from Victoria Public School in Chatham in 1980, after 40 years of teaching. In the latter years, Miss Young taught with the assistance of canes and finally, from a wheelchair.
Olive Young was born in Inverness, Scotland in 1921. She immigrated to Canada with her parents and her sister Isobel where the family earned a modest living. She did not marry and spent many of her younger years caring for her parents.
She began her teaching career in 1940 at a Chatham Township school, SS # 8, where she taught students in grades 1 through 8. Her friend, Mollie French, recalls Olive's teaching philosophy. "She believed her pupils needed to understand the basics of learning - reading and math skills and, of course, they had to behave themselves." She insisted that her students work hard everyday to prepare themselves for the world beyond the classroom. And although she was described as strict and strong-willed, Miss Young loved her pupils. (She always called them pupils. Students, she said, were in the senior grades.) She kept every card and memento they gave her and did her best to keep track of her pupils as they moved on to greater adventures. "She knew each one by name," said Mollie.
In her retirement, she welcomed her pupils who came by to visit and always looked forward to seeing the children at her door on Hallowe'en. When she moved from her home to long term care, she instructed her "good neighbours", Toni and Albert McGowan, to be sure to go to her house to greet the trick-or-treaters.
Mollie was quick to respond when asked why someone with no affiliation to Western would leave such a generous bequest to the Faculty of Education: "Olive's whole life was education. Her teaching and her Grade 2 pupils meant the world to her." As a result of her legacy for tomorrow, Olive Young will make a substantial difference in the lives of 10 Faculty of Education student teachers at Western each year.
