12 o'clock at the rock (3 photos)

Graduates of the old W.J. Lamming Public School are looking forward to unearthing a time capsule they buried in 1967.

The capsule, believed to be contained in a metal pipe, is buried near a rock monument commemorating a log schoolhouse which once stood on a parcel of city-owned land on Allen’s Side Road.

If all goes according to plan, the capsule will be removed from the ground at 12 p.m., July 1, 2017, as part of a W.J. Lamming Public School reunion.

“12 o’clock at the rock,” said Monica Krell, Sault native and former W.J. Lamming student, speaking to SooToday.

“I was in Grade 3 and eight years old at the time,” Krell recalled.

143 students took part in the Lamming time capsule exercise, Krell said.

Students were instructed to write down a choice of three professions they would be interested in pursuing when they grew to adulthood.

“I’ve done a survey of my classmates (in preparation for the reunion), and interestingly, the girls tended toward the female-oriented professions,” Krell said.

“Most of them wanted to be teachers, secretaries, nurses, stewardesses, and from the female classmates that I’ve come into contact with, most of them did pursue a career in one of those fields.”

Not Krell.

“One of my professions of choice was to be an actress.”

“That was my number one on the list, and unfortunately I can’t remember what the number two and number three spots were, but I have a feeling I might have written down actress as numbers two and three,” Krell chuckled.

“I did not achieve that dream, but I did marry a professional stage performer.”

Krell worked in hotel management in Toronto, where she met her husband Robert Kuenzli, a European opera singer who studied at the Royal Conservatory of Music.

The couple divide their time travelling back and forth between their home in St. Thomas, Ontario and Europe, where Kuenzli performs.

Krell is Kuenzli’s manager.

Krell recalls most of the male students who took part in the time capsule exercise wanted to be truck drivers, Algoma Steel workers or race car drivers.

W.J. Lamming students were also required to write down how they envisioned the future.

“Some people thought we would be like The Jetsons,” Krell said, referring to the popular 1960s animated TV show which portrayed a family living in an incredibly futuristic world, in which people travelled to work in flying saucers.

“One of my friends thought we would be able to see a person when you’re talking to them on the phone, so obviously that came true (through Skype and other types of 21st century technology).”

Krell said she cannot recall what other objects, if any, were placed inside the Lamming time capsule.

“That will be a big question mark too, when we open it, to see what exactly is in there.”

A photograph, including most W.J. Lamming Grade 1 to Grade 8 students, along with teachers and staff, was taken in October 1967 to mark the burying of the time capsule.

Krell can be seen in the photo in the middle of the third row from the bottom, as the dark-haired girl wearing a parka with a furry white collar, seated between two boys marked with the numbers 49 and 50.

“We’re going to have a ceremony at the site on Allen’s Side Road for those who participated in 1967, but there are space limitations, so we’re asking those who are actually in the photo to come for the unearthing, along with the media, and then following that we’ll take the capsule to the Tarentorus Sports Club (at 56 Avery Road) where we’ll open it.”

The ceremony at the Tarentorus Sports Club will be open to all W.J. Lamming Public School alumni, Krell said.

There will be a luncheon and a cash bar at the sports club, and tickets will go on sale soon.

“We found some of the teachers in the photo, and hopefully we’ll get them at the reunion as well.”

“Everybody’s excited because we want to reach as many students as possible…we’re going to reminisce about old times,” Krell said.

All W.J. Lamming alumni are welcome to contact Krell and/or event co-organizer Rick Lamming by email at [email protected]

Krell estimates about 100 alumni have been reached so far.

A W.J. Lamming Public School time capsule reopening and school reunion was originally planned for the year 2000 to mark the new millennium, and a committee was put together in 1998, but plans for that event petered out.

Recently, Krell and event co-organizer Rick Lamming revived the idea with the intention of holding the capsule unearthing/school reunion as a 50th anniversary celebration for the old W.J. Lamming crowd and as a Canada 150 event in 2017.

W.J.Lamming Public School closed in 1979, and the school is an historic tale in itself, as reported earlier in a SooToday story.