Crandall

  
This is a very brief outline of the Scotia community which is at the very southeast corner of the Crandall Consolidated School District that took in the north part of Scotia.
In the spring of 1882, a group of farm families who had been living on rented farms in the vicinity of St. Mary's in Ontario decided to pull up stakes and head for Manitoba where homesteads were still available. So, on March 16, the men left with their cars of settlers' effects. The women and children were to follow in the next train for Brandon, the end of the rail at that time. After a long and tiresome trip, they arrived in Winnipeg, smack into a three-day Manitoba blizzard which held them in the city for almost two weeks. They eventually reached Brandon and were met by friends who had left the same district in Ontario two years earlier, but our pioneers had still fifty miles to go through snow and high water. These men did take up homesteads and were soon busy building shelters for families and livestock.
One of the early needs was for a school which was soon too small for the growing families. Church service was held in private homes and that too was crowded. So, in 1895, there were two schools built - Maple Shade for the north and Scotia for the south. The same year a church was built on a stone foundation which still stands in good shape, a credit to its builders. The church was dedicated by Rev. Robertson on Sunday, November 24, 1895. He was assisted by the Hamiota Choir and used as his text Ephesians 5-25, "Christ also loved his church and gave himself for it."
Until 1889 all grain these folk had for sale had to be hauled to Virden or Shoal Lake, a distance of about thirty miles either north or south and for the most with oxen. That year the C.P.R. was built as far as Hamiota and in 1909 the old Grand Trunk was opened for service and a station and two elevators were built at Pope, also a Post Office was opened the next spring. The station was used extensively for years as it was a direct route to Winnipeg, also the west. About this time prosperity seemed to hit this district, as new and large houses and barns were being built and all on fifty cents a bushel for wheat.
The community had been growing so fast that again the young families were on the move westward, many to Togo, Outlook and Conquest, to pioneer as their parents had done, also to homestead. Three things Scotia was noted for was their summer picnics, their fowl suppers in the fall and their Clydesdale horses.

The church was Presbyterian until union in 1925 and was kept open until 1951 when regular Sunday services were discontinued. In 1942 there was a cairn built just across the road from the church with a plaque which has this inscription: "They builded better than they knew."





This cairn was dedicated and unveiled by Rev. William Bill. A cemetery was opened just two miles south of the church on a quiet country road and it too is well cared for. Two more anniversaries of note were held in this church, their sixtieth with Rev. John Dunnitt, a former pastor as guest speaker, and another their seventy-fifth, in 1970, when a large congregation heard Rev. Bowins, assisted by the Hamiota Senior Choir, use the same text as Rev. Robertson used when the church was dedicated, "Christ also loved his church and gave himself for it." Rev. Bowins in his service paid a wonderful tribute to the Scotia pioneers.