Hartford School ‘bus buddies’ reminisce at reunion

A group of people who, decades ago, rode a rural bus route together instead took a trip down memory lane at a reunion on Saturday.

A large group of “bus buddies” came on board this year at Hartford School reunion held at a picturesque horse farm owned by Paul and Debbie Gibbons — herself a bus buddy – located just outside Oakland.

For the past 13 years, Janice (Kersey) Schweder has been organizing Hartford School reunions. The two-room school house, just south of the hamlet of Hartford, opened in the late 1880s and was closed in 1960.

Growing up in Little Buffalo, one kilometer east of Hartford, Schweder said she “loved that little school” she attended for three years. Hartford was known as a “union school” for children who lived in both Haldimand and Norfolk. The building still stands and is being converted into apartments.

So happy to reconnect with each other after the first reunion in 2010, the Hartford chums started getting together a couple times a year.

On Saturday, the bus buddies were invited to join the party. They are students who rode the bus route from Norfolk through the western tip of Haldimand County, Concessions 15 to 17 of Walpole Township to Waterford District High School, at a time when the high school in Hagersville and the former Northview Public School didn’t have room to accommodate all the Haldimand students.

The bus route was driven for many years by members of the Goble family – Archie and his sons Keith and Arnie – who lived in the Waterford area.

The Goble run through Haldimand ended in the 1970s, said Schweder, but Arnie continued to drive his bus in Norfolk until his death in the late 1980s.

“He loved and cared about us,” said Schweder. “He was strict but it was obvious he loved his job.”

Years later, together with his wife Marg, Arnie attended the weddings of several kids from his bus.

“He was at my wedding,” said Schweder.

Arnie’s son Rick Goble was among a large crowd gathered at Saturday’s meeting. He rode his dad’s bus to Waterford District High School in the early ’70s.

“I didn’t get any special treatment,” said Rick with a laugh. “I was just one of the gang.

“My dad really liked all the kids. He told me the first time he drove a bus (at about age 17) some of the students were older than him.”

Schweder said there are hundreds of Arnie Goble bus buddies in the area from the 1970s and 1980s, and even more going back as far as the ’50s.

The plan is to include them in all the upcoming meetings. The events are also fundraisers. Donations totaled $900 at Saturday’s gathering and will be divided between West Haldimand Hospital and Norfolk General Hospital.