The Survivors Speak/Chapter 2
Forced departure "I didn't want my dad to go to jail."
For many students, the trip to residential school began with the arrival of an official letter. When Josephine Eshkibok was eight years old, a priest came to her home in northern Ontario and presented her mother with a letter. "My mother opened the letter and I could see her face; I could see her face, it was kind of sad but mad too. She said to me, 'I have to let you go,' she told us. So we had to, go to, go to school at Spanish Residential School."27
Isaac Daniels recalled one dramatic evening in 1945, when the Indian agent came to his father's home on the James Smith Reserve in Saskatchewan.
I didn't understand a word, 'cause I spoke Cree. Cree was the main language in our family. So, so my dad was kind of angry. I kept seeing him pointing to that Indian agent.
So that night we were going to bed, it was just a one-room shack we all lived in, and I heard my dad talking to my mom there, and he was kind of crying, but he was talking in Cree now. He said that, "It's either residential school for my boys, or I go to jail." He said that in Cree. So, I overheard him. So I said the next morning, we all got up, and I said, "Well, I'm going to residential school," 'cause I didn't want my dad to go to jail.28
Donna Antoine was enrolled in a British Columbia residential school after a visit from a government official to her family.
It must have been in the summer, the, the Indian agent came to, to see my father. I imagine it must have been the Indian agent because it looked pretty serious. He was talking to him for some time, and because we couldn't understand, we, we couldn't even eavesdrop what they were talking about. So after some time spent there, Father sat, sat us down, and told us that this Indian agent came to tell us, tell him that we had to go to school, to a boarding school, one that is not close to our home, but far away.
The official had told her father that he would be sent to jail if he did not send Antoine to residential school.
"We were sort of caught in, in wanting to stay home, and seeing our parents go to jail, and we thought, we must have thought who's gonna look after us if our parents go to jail?"
In the late 1940s, Vitaline Elsie Jenner was living with her family in northern Alberta. "My, my mom and dad loved me, loved all of us a lot. They took care of us the best that they knew how, and I felt so comfortable being at home." This came to an end in the fall of 1951.
My parents were told that we had to go to the residential school. And prior to that, at times, my dad didn't make very much money, so sometimes he would go to the welfare to get, to get ration, or get some monies to support twelve of us. And my parents were told that if they didn't put us in the residential school that all that would be cut off. So, my parents felt forced to put us in the residential school, eight of us, eight out of, of twelve.30
Many parents sent their children to residential school for one reason: they had been told they would be sent to jail if they kept their children at home. Ken A. Littledeer's father told him that "if I didn't go to school, he'd go to jail, that's what he told me." As a result, he was enrolled in the Sioux Lookout, Ontario, school.31
Andrew Bull Calf was raised by his grandfather, Herbert Bull Calf. When he was enrolled in residential school in Cardston, Alberta, his grandfather was told "that if he didn't bring me, my grandfather would be ... would go to jail and be charged."32
When Martha Minoose told her mother she did not wish to return to the Roman Catholic school in Cardston, her mother explained, "If you don't go to school, your dad is going to go to jail. We are going to get a letter written in red that's very serious."33
Maureen Gloria Johnson went to the Lower Post school in northern British Columbia in 1959.
I went there with a bus. They load us all up on a bus, and took us. And I remember my, my mom had a really hard time letting us kids go, and she had, she had a really hard time. She begged the priest, and the priest said it was law that we had to go, and if we didn't go, then my parents would be in trouble.34
In the face of such coercion, parents often felt helpless and ashamed. Paul Dixon attended residential schools in Ontario and Québec. Once he spoke to his father about his experience at the schools. According to Dixon, "He got angry and said, 'I had no choice, you know.' It really, it really hit me hard. I wasn't accusing him of anything, you know, I just wanted some explanations. He said, 'I, I will, I will go, I would go in jail, I will go in jail if I didn't let you go.'"35
When she was four or five, Lynda Pahpasay McDonald was taken by plane from her parents' home on Sydney Lake, Ontario.
I looked outside, my mom was, you know, flailing her arms, and, and I, and she must have been crying, and I see my dad grabbing her, and, I was wondering why, why my mom was, you know, she was struggling.
She told me many years later what happened, and she explained to me why we had to be sent away to, to residential school. And, and I just couldn't get that memory out of my head, and I still remember to this day what, what happened that day. And she told me, like, she was so hurt, and, and I used to ask her, "Why did you let us go, like, why didn't you stop them, you know? Why didn't you, you know, come and get us?" And she told me, "We couldn't, because they told us if we tried to do anything, like, get you guys back, we'd be thrown into jail." So, they didn't want to end up in jail, 'cause they still had babies at, at the cabin.36
Dorothy Ross recalled how unhappy her father was about sending his children to residential school. "As we got older, I remember Dad, I knew Dad was already angry. He was angry at the school for taking us away, for taking myself and my siblings. He couldn't, couldn't do, he couldn't do anything to help us. Either, same thing with my mom, 'There's nothing I can do to help you.'"37
Albert Marshall hated his parents for sending him to the Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia, school. Many years later, he asked his brother what the family reaction had been to his being sent to school.
He didn't answer me for a while, a long time. He says, "Nobody said anything for days," because my father was crying every day. Finally my father told the family, "I failed as a father. I couldn't protect my child, but I just couldn't because you know what the Mounties, the priest, the Indian agents told me? They told me, if I don't, if I resist too much then they would take the other younger, younger brother and younger, younger children." Then he says, "It was not a choice. I could not say, take them or take the three of them. But I couldn't say nothing and I know I have to live with that."38
Jaco Anaviapik's parents opposed his being sent to the Pond Inlet hostel in what is now Nunavut.
When they started taking kids off the land to attend school the rcmp boat would pick us up. There is no doubt that our parents were intimidated by the police into letting us go. They were put in a position where they could not say no. Even though they did not want us to go they were too afraid of the police, too afraid to stand up to the police. I am one of the lucky ones because my father did say no when they wanted to take me. He told them he would bring me himself once the ice had formed. I was brought here after the children who had been rounded up by boat had already started. That first year my parents came several times to take me home but they were refused by the area administrator. My sister told me that my parents were very sad at that time.
Rather than be separated from their children, his parents moved to Pond Inlet. "After two years had passed my family decided to move to Pond because they knew I had to go to school."39
In some cases, parents reluctantly sent their children because the residential school represented their only educational option. Ellen Smith's father attended the Anglican residential school at Hay River in the Northwest Territories. She believes that his experiences at the school led him to oppose her being sent to residential school. However, her grandfather believed it was necessary that she get an education.
My dad reluctantly let me go to school because my grandpa said that "in the future she will help our people; she needs to go there." And that struggle occurred with my dad over the years. For eleven years, that I went to residential school. But my grandpa was the one that said, "They have to go. She has to go."40
She was sent to the Anglican school in Aklavik in 1953. She eventually attended three other residential schools.
Some parents wanted their children to gain the knowledge they believed was needed to protect their community and culture. When Shirley Williams's father took her to catch the bus to the Spanish, Ontario, girls' school, he bought her an ice cream and gave her four instructions: "One was remember who you are. Do not forget your language. Whatever they do to you in there, be strong. And the fourth one, learn about the Indian Act, and come back and teach me. So with those four things, he said that 'you don't know why I'm telling you this, but some day you will understand.'"41
One student, who attended the Gordon's, Saskatchewan, school, recalled the ways in which the churches competed against one another to recruit students.
But when we look at the residential schools, you know, and the churches we recognize, you know, at least I've seen it, you know, that we've had these two competing religions, the Anglican and the Catholic churches both competing for our souls it seemed. You know, I remember growing up on the reserve here when they were looking for students. They were competing against each other. We were the prizes, you know, that they would gain if they won. I remember they, the Catholic priests coming out with, you know, used hockey equipment and telling us, you know, "Come and come to our school. Come and play hockey for us. Come and play in our band. We got all kinds of bands here; we got trombones and trumpets and drums," and all that kind of stuff. They use all this stuff to encourage us or entice us to come to the Catholic school. And then on the other hand, the Anglicans, they would come out with what they called "bale clothes." They bring out bunch of clothes in a bale, like, a big bale. It was all used clothing and they'd give it to the women on the reserve here, and the women made blankets and stuff like that out of these old clothes. But that's the way they, they competed for us as people.42
Some children wanted to go to school, at least initially. Leon Wyallon, who attended the Roman Catholic residence in Fort Smith in the 1960s, said he looked forward to residential school "because I wanted to learn; learn to talk English and learn, so I can learn both languages at the same time." He hated his first year at the residence, particularly the restrictions on speaking his own language. But he said, "My mom and dad didn't listen to me; but they still sent me back."43
In other cases, missionaries convinced students of the benefits of going to school. Anthony Henry said that a priest named Father LaSalle convinced him to come to residential school at Kenora. According to Henry, his mother did not want him to go to residential school, but LaSalle, who spoke fluent Ojibway, convinced him it would be beneficial.