“I never wanted to be a teacher. All the Mutton girls were teachers and I wasn’t going to be one.” Muriel and Rena Mutton, both born into a family of teachers, recall their long careers in one-room schoolhouses, set in rural Ontario in the 1930s and 1940s. With the eye of the community keenly watching, teachers were under pressure to manage eight grades, maintain discipline without backup (cue the strap) and could see promising students eschew a high school education for much needed farm labour. Released from provincial ‘Normal Schools’ – the training ground of new teachers – these women ventured away from their own homes at a young age to educate a province.