STEEVES, BLANCHARD PERLEY (1871-1975)

STEEVES, BLANCHARD PERLEY, principal of Harkins Academy, 1904-10; b. 16 Aug 1871, s/o Frederick Wellington Steeves and Jerusha Bishop; m. 1st, c1899, Cora Smith, of Buctouche, N.B., and 2nd, 1914, Olive Neata Markland, BA; d. Monterey, Cal., 31 Dec 1975.

Blanchard P. Steeves graduated from the Provincial Normal School in 1892 and taught for several years in smaller superior schools at Moore's Mills, Elgin, and Bloomfield, and elsewhere. While doing so, he continued his studies part time at the universities of Acadia and Dalhousie (BA 1898). He was passed over when he first sought the principalship of Harkins Academy in 1901 but was chosen when he applied in 1904. In that competition he was one of only two applicants who held a grammar school teacher's license, and favorable reports were received on his performance during the previous two years as principal of the Westmorland County Grammar School at Dorchester.

Steeves was scholarly and gentlemanly, and enjoyed the respect of students, parents, and colleagues. While he was principal the Harkins Academy annex was built. This was a three-storey addition to the front of the 1894 building which gave the school the appearance which it still has today. It came into use with the opening of school in January 1910, providing six new classrooms and an auditorium.

During his six years in Newcastle, Steeves was president of the Teachers' Institute for two one-year terms. He sang in the Methodist church choir, served as president of the choral society, and was a "forcible debater" and "instructive lecturer" in the men's union. His wife, Cora Smith, was treasurer of the women's missionary society of the church.

Steeves resigned from the Harkins principalship effective the end of December 1910 to take a position in western Canada. After he made the announcement he was cleaning a supposedly-empty rifle in the kitchen of his home when it suddenly discharged a bullet into the body of his wife, wounding her fatally. Over the next ten hours a wrenching tragedy was witnessed in which she, the mother of three young children, passed slowly out of consciousness and died of loss of blood, while her doctors stood by helplessly.

In January 1911, Steeves accepted a position in Alberta, where he had a sister living. In 1923, when his only daughter died at age sixteen, he was living in British Columbia. Meanwhile, he furthered his studies in education at the University of Washington (MA 1925, PhD 1928). In 1927, he was appointed to the staff of the Territorial Normal School in Hawaii, and he was continued on the faculty when this school was absorbed by the University of Hawaii in 1931. In 1936, he retired in California, where he died in 1975, at 104 years of age.