A local woman best known for her commanding presence and her passion for education has died.
Constance Rulka, who spent some 32 of her 51 years in education working as an English teacher and school trustee in Squamish, died on April 8 at Hilltop House. She was 88.
She was born Constance Woffinden in 1926 in the Scottish coal mining town of Swinton. Educated in Yorkshire, England, she earned degrees in English and French at St. Andrews University in Scotland, completed post-graduate work in American literature in the U.S. and later earned her diploma in education from St. Andrews and a B.A. at the University of London.
At St. Andrews, she met the man who was to become her husband, Kazimierz Rulka, a French-speaking Polish army officer who worked in the French Resistance during World War II. Constance began her teaching career in Scotland before moving to West Africa, where she “pioneered the practical use of the multiple choice examination and the use of computers to mark such tests,” according to a biography written by her daughter-in-law Marilyn Rulka.
Constance Rulka wrote 13 textbooks in English and poetry published by Macmillan Publishing. After moving to Canada in 1959, she taught in several small towns in Alberta, the last at Innisfail High School, where she was head of the language arts department.
The couple moved to Squamish in 1973 and Rulka taught English at Howe Sound Secondary School for 17 years. Faced with forced retirement in 1990, she first ran for a position as school trustee in 1990 and served in that capacity for 15 years, Marilyn Rulka wrote.
Rulka wrote a regular column on education in The Chief beginning in the early 1990s. Her writing in The Chief and other publications earned her the Distinguished Achievement Award for excellence in educational journalism from the Educational Press Association of America in 1992.
As a teacher, Rulka’s expertise and passion shone through, said current school board chair Rick Price.
“We first knew her in Squamish as sort of THE English teacher,” Price said. “Students who loved the subject would flock to her classes. She was very well regarded in her field.”
As a trustee, including several years as board chair, Rulka undertook the task of handwriting a Christmas card to every School District 48 employee — some 300 people. “She was aware that large organizations like this can be quite impersonal, and she took it on herself to bridge that gap,” Price said.
Price remembers standing up at a candidates’ forum while running for a trustee’s post for the first time. After Price nervously followed his notes while making his opening statement, the diminutive Rulka stood up to make her opening remarks, sans notes.
“The place fell quiet. She spoke commandingly for her two minutes and sat down to an eruption of applause. And that was that,” he said, adding that Rulka defeated him soundly for the position.
In 2006, the library at Howe Sound Secondary School was renamed the Constance Rulka Library in her honour. The library in her former place of residence, Renaissance (now Shannon Falls Retirement Residence) also bears her name.
Her granddaughter, fellow educator Kirstie Armstrong, wrote, “Though short in stature, Constance was large in presence and a woman of great moral courage. She knew that people, especially children, were the real treasures in life.”
Dr. Stuart Rulka, Constance’s son, said that in keeping with his mother’s wishes, no memorial will be held. In lieu of flowers, he asked that donations be made to the Squamish Public Library to honour her passion for reading and literacy.
