The Stratford Normal School

When my wife realized we were looking at the Stratford Normal School, she exclaimed, "That's the school your mom attended, Ken!" My mother, born in the early years of the last century, was one of almost 14,000 students who went on to graduate from the Stratford Normal School. After graduating, my mother landed a position teaching in the far eastern end of the province where she met her future husband, my dad.

This is what the Ontario Heritage Trust has to say about the structure:

In the 1900s, concerns about the quality of rural education prompted the Ontario government to build four new Normal Schools to increase the supply of qualified teachers in the province. The Stratford Normal School prepared its students for conditions in the rural schools that employed most new teachers. It is the only one of the Normal Schools from its era to survive without substantial alteration.

For more pictures and a bit more information read the posting on Canada's Historic Places.