Cloverdale Kindergarten

When I was growing up in Cloverdale most mothers did not hold an outside job. My mother was a teacher but she quit when she had me. My father ran a printing shop and office supply store in Cloverdale and my mother helped out there for a few hours a day when I started school but otherwise she was always at home.

One winter my brother was in the hospital in New Westminster and so my mother was there a lot. I was 5 years old at the time and I couldn't hang out at the hospital or my father's business so they put me in kindergarten which was pretty much like playtime with other kids. The kindergarten was run by a nice elderly lady named Mrs. Nowles. And I know I'm probably spelling her name wrong. Back then I couldn't spell! Could also have been Mrs. Knowles. All I remember was that it sounded like "nose". She had a house on 60th Avenue just west of 176th Street with a huge wing built in the back that was the playroom for kids. That white house is still there. Its on a corner of the alley where the people who live on 176th Street drive in to park in their driveways or garages.

I remember having a lot of fun there playing with other kids. There weren't many kids on 182 Street where I grew up at that time, though as more houses started to be built more kids came to the neighborhood.

The kindergarten worked out well for me because a lot of the kids I met were there in my Grade 1 class when I started at Cloverdale Elementary, making the starting school experience less traumatic for me seeing as how I already knew a lot of kids. Most of the kids were in the same situation that I was. Dad worked, mom stayed home, and the kids just came to kindergarten as a social playtime thing. Most kids only came once or twice a week. I remember having so much fun that even after my brother came home from hospital that I still continued to go and have fun with my new playmates. Mrs. Nowles had a field behind the house and kind of like the big kids in school, she held a sports day back there. She also held an Easter egg hunt there. Mrs. Nowles either had one or two ladies who were employees or volunteers, perhaps moms of some kids in attendance.

A few years down the road kindergarten was introduced into the school system which pretty much effectively shut down Mrs Nowles calling her facility a kindergarten. So she switched and became a daycare which she operated for many more years.

Judging by her age back then I'm sure Mrs. Nowles or Knowles has long since passed away.

Today there is a sign on the fence in front of the house saying they do "lo cost name tags and engraving".