The fascinating, sometimes ridiculous, history of Abbotsford's school names

What do an Indigenous teacher, a hockey star, a school superintendent, a mill foreman, a British prince with a troubled marriage, and three Alexanders have in common? 

It’s not the start of a bad joke. Each of those individuals is immortalized on a school somewhere in Abbotsford—and the stories surrounding each school’s naming range from heartwarming to ridiculous.

The histories were compiled by Abbotsford’s Retired Teachers’ Association, as a gift to the school district on the association’s 50th anniversary. You’ll be able to find links for the histories of every school at the bottom of the story.

Irene Kelleher Totí:ltawtxw Elementary

How do you celebrate a teacher you once cast aside?

Irene Kelleher was a woman in a world that did not tolerate complexity. Born in 1901 to a mixed family with white grandfathers and Indigenous grandmothers, Kelleher was part of what she would later call the “invisible generations”—the people on the outside of white society because of their mixed heritage. 

She grew up in Matsqui, and her attendance at the high school there formed her future. There was a favourite teacher who inspired Kelleher, she said, “because from that time on, I wanted to become a teacher.”

In 1920, Kelleher attended school in Vancouver, aiming to become a teacher herself. She barely made it through—due to what she called “excessive shyness”—but survived to become the first Indigenous woman to be awarded a teaching certificate. She applied to become a teacher at her home school in Matsqui. Her hope was to stay at home and help support her parents. The school board denied those plans. 

According to Kelleher’s biography, Invisible Generations, a board member told Kelleher’s father that they did not want a native person teaching their students. “The secretary was an Englishman,” Kelleher later remembered. “He didn’t want a half-breed teaching his children.”

(You can buy the book here.)

Kelleher worked for two decades in other parts of the province, once getting a post in Kilgard, but she wasn’t able to return home to Matsqui until the start of the Second World War. 

In 1939, Kelleher was awarded a teaching position at North Poplar School, at a starting salary of $1,050 a year. She stayed there until 1960, eventually becoming principal, before moving to Abbotsford Elementary. She retired from teaching in 1964, taking time to look after her parents and learn more about her Indigenous heritage. 

Kelleher died in 2004, just three months after her 103rd birthday. Hundreds of former students attended her funeral.

Nearly two decades later, the Abbotsford School District was looking for a name for a new elementary school on Eagle Mountain. Instead of determining a name themselves, the school board opened it up to the public. Dozens of people suggested Irene Kelleher, as a way to honour her efforts as a teacher and as an Indigenous woman. 

The school board agreed, adding the Halq'eméylem word Totí:ltawtxw (house of learning) to the school’s name. Irene Kelleher Totí:ltawtxw Elementary opened in 2022.

“Irene Kelleher modelled what it means to persevere through a traumatic history and demonstrated how to live life in a meaningful and encouraging way for others,” the school district wrote in a press release. “Irene left a legacy of respect, patience and kindness towards her students and peers, which will be commemorated in the history of this elementary school.”

Colleen & Gordie Howe Middle School 

How long will you wait to open a school?

In the early 2000s, Abbotsford was in the midst of a school-building craze. It opened three new middle schools in three years, including Colleen & Gordie Howe Middle, which began its first year in 2001 with 600 students. 

Gordie Howe—aka Mr. Hockey— is a Canadian legend. He played 26 seasons with the NHL, scored more than 800 goals, played into his 50s, and gave the hockey world the Gordie Howe Hat Trick—a goal, an assist, and a fight all in one game. 

Howe has no connection to Abbotsford—he is from Saskatoon, and has a variety of monuments named after him there. But that didn’t stop the Abbotsford School District from wanting to honour the hockey hero.

When the Abbotsford School District approached Howe about having his name on a local school, Howe requested that his wife be included also. Colleen Howe was his business manager and a strong humanitarian; Howe said that “without her, I wouldn’t have become who I was.” The couple met when Howe was just 17.

The district happily acquiesced, and Colleen & Gordie Howe Middle School opened to students and staff on Sept. 1, 2001.

However, the official opening of the school was delayed by more than a year. The bombing of the twin towers on Sept. 11 made the Howes fearful of flying, and they did not come to Abbotsford to officially open the school until June 2002.

WJ Mouat Secondary School 

Did you ever take a vacation and come back to find your name slapped on a building?

Bill Mouat had a long career in education before he ever came to Abbotsford. In 1937, he started the first school in Coquitlam, and eventually became an inspector of schools in the Interior. In 1960, at the age of 50, he arrived in Abbotsford as the new superintendent of the school district.

Abbotsford at the time was growing and changing, and it continued to do so throughout Mouat’s time with the district. In 1972, the communities of Abbotsford, Sumas, and Huntingdon merged to create the District of Abbotsford. Around the same time, construction began on a new secondary school in the farmland in Clearbrook.

The school was intended to house 150 Grade 8 and 9 students, and was originally supposed to be named North Clearbrook Secondary. Delays postponed the school’s opening, and the students were shuffled into classrooms in the surrounding schools. 

While the school was under construction, Mouat was encouraged by his staff to take a vacation. When he returned, they told him there was an issue at the new school that only he could solve. When he arrived at the school, he saw his name emblazoned across the facade: WJ Mouat. 

He joked the board had run out of names. 

Mouat retired the same year his namesake school officially opened, but he didn’t leave it behind. He returned each June to celebrate that year’s graduating class until 2000, when he turned 90. He died in 2004, and the school dedicated a bench to his memory the following year.

Godson Elementary 

How much land does it take to get your full name on a building?

Jack Godson arrived in Canada in the early 1900s, beginning work at the Abbotsford Lumber Company on Mill Lake shortly after his arrival. The long days at the mill site introduced him to Molly, a cook at the company, and the pair fell in love. They married in 1917—leaving Molly’s father to take care of their cows while they went on their honeymoon—and bought five acres of land on Ware Road in 1920.

The couple lived together in a kit home they built from a Sears catalogue until Jack’s death in 1935, when he was just 47 years old. 

In 1952, Molly sold four acres of her land to the Abbotsford School District. The sale came with two simple requests: that a large maple tree on the property remain standing, and that the future school be named the John Godson in memory of Molly’s late husband. 

For years, the district did nothing with the land. In 1958, it opened a one-room school on the property—but that school was not named John Godson School. Instead, the district called it simply “Godson,” with no first name.

A second room was added to the building in 1963. The following year, the district broke its other promise to Molly and cut down the maple tree, citing its impact on the school’s playground and sewer lines.

Molly, who was still alive, refused to sell the district any more of her land. (She later sold it to a housing developer instead.)

When she died, her remaining land was given to the Trethewey Museum. Her son Ralph Godson asked the district to rename the school John Godson Elementary in 1988, as a last attempt to honour his father as his mother would have wished. The district refused.

Prince Charles Elementary

Is it better to ask forgiveness than permission?

In the 1980s, Abbotsford was going through a phase in which it named its new schools after historic Canadians, with an emphasis on BC and Abbotsford residents. But trustee Henry Teichrob had another idea for a new elementary school being built on McKee Road. 

He suggested naming the school after Prince Charles, who had just had a baby with his wife Princess Diana. The prince had visited BC in October 1982, staying in Victoria for his tour of Pearson College—and a made-for-TV movie celebrating the two royals’ marriage had just been released in the States.

The prince had no connection to Abbotsford, but Teichrob said Prince Charles represented “the history of the moment.” 

The board approved the name for the new elementary school, and all seemed to tick along during the school’s construction. But in 1984, shortly before the school opened, the board learned they couldn’t just decide to name a school after Prince Charles. They needed his permission first—and they did not have it.

The board appealed to the Lieutenant Governor for help, and he immediately contacted the London office of Prince Charles. Permission was granted just in time for the school’s opening.

Alexander Elementary

Which Alexander are we talking about here?

Unlike most other Abbotsford schools—which are named with a person’s first and last name if they are honouring a person at all—Alexander Elementary is just Alexander. And it’s because school trustees just couldn’t agree on which person named Alexander they wanted to name the building for. 

The school opened in 1951 as a one-room annex for Grade 1 students destined to attend what was then Abbotsford Elementary further in town. (Today, Abbotsford Elementary has become Abbotsford Virtual School.) New classrooms for older grades were added between 1954 and 1958, and the building was officially declared its own school in 1962.

When the building first opened, the trustees were divided on who should be given the honour of having an annex named after them. 

According to researchers, at least one trustee suggested Alexander Peers, a teacher in the community during the late 1800s. He helped establish the School District of Sumas in 1871, when he rented a building from the government and started teaching. But the trustee who suggested Peers’ name didn’t actually know much about the fellow. In fact, the trustee couldn’t even initially know Peers’ last name.

Other trustees suggested Harold Alexander, then the governor general of Canada, and Alexander Hougen, the long-time Reeve of Abbotsford at the time.

In the end, the trustees decided they wouldn’t pick just one person out of the bunch, and simply called the school “Alexander,” which it remains to this day.

To find the histories of all Abbotsford’s schools, click the links below. The histories were compiled by the Abbotsford Retired Teachers’ Association as a gift to the school district.

• Abbotsford Middle School

• Abbotsford School of Integrated Arts (North Poplar) 

• Abbotsford Senior Secondary 

• Abbotsford Traditional School

• Abbotsford Virtual School

• Aberdeen Elementary

• Alexander Elementary

• Auguston Traditional Elementary

• Bakerview Centre for Learning

• Barrowtown Elementary 

• Blue Jay Elementary

• Bradner Elementary

• École Centennial Elementary 

• École Chief Dan George Middle School

• Clayburn Middle School

• École Clearbrook Elementary

• Colleen & Gordie Howe Middle School

• Dave Kandal Elementary

• Dormick Park Elementary 

• Dr. Thomas A. Swift Elementary

• Eugene Reimer Middle School

• Godson Elementary

• Harry Sayers Elementary 

• Irene Kelleher Totí:ltawtxw Elementary

• Jackson Elementary

• John Maclure Elementary 

• King Traditional Elementary

• École Margaret Stenersen Elementary

• Mathxwí Elementary

• McMillan Elementary

• Mountain Elementary

• Mt. Lehman Elementary

• Prince Charles Elementary 

• Rick Hansen Secondary

• Robert Bateman Secondary School 

• Ross Elementary 

• Sandy Hill Elementary 

• Semá:th Elementary

• South Poplar Traditional Elementary 

• Ten-Broeck Elementary 

• Terry Fox Elementary

• William A. Fraser Middle School

• WJ Mouat Secondary School

• Yale Secondary School