shiela reimer & marg hyman - school & other stories
Shiela
Past history, I hardly remember. But I do know that Chief Ahtahkakoop was really smart. The priest that had arrived here at that time when Ahtahkakoop was here they worked good together. This is where we got our Anglican-Cree ways. Still today, we pursue this way.
And myself, I grew up in an area by Debden, where my parents had land. As my older brothers grew up, we had to move back here so they can attend school. We used to live by a river. I remember late Allan Starblanket, he built a bridge so they can walk across the bridge to attend school. There was still along ways to walk after they crossed the bridge, as the school was far ways yet. I remember my dad standing by the door, he was watching my two older brothers walking to school one morning as they were holding hands. He got very emotional and began to cry. He says, “now my sons, school system has taken over your lives, no more freedom, you are all be going to school for 12 years, to get education. I pray for nothing but the best for you both.”
From there I grew up to the age where I had to start school. But when I had to start school we had to move from our home. This time we moved closer to school. But we still had to walk to school. No matter how cold it got, we still had to walk. Pretty soon, the river began to flood. The men gathered again to build a bridge for students to cross the bridge to go to school, by this time there was lot of us now attending school. We went to the reserve school here, until we got sent to a Residential School at Prince Albert called, All Saints Schools. I was there for 2 years. I really hated it there; we were treated so badly. We were treated bad in all ways. I don’t really want to talk about it too much, but we were malnourished. We were not treated good, at times it was so cold in our dorms, there was 5 of us girls in that dorm. The sister that kept us was so old. The food that was fed to us was very poor, rotten at times, but if we didn’t eat, then we starve. At night time it was so cold, there were times where we had to sleep together to warm up, then when we get caught, we get a beating. The teacher we had, was so mean, she would yell at us and also call us dumb, like we didn’t know anything.
I finally finished school, and I started a family. I had my children. My oldest is 65 years old now. We both receive the old age pension today. (a laughter). The first man I was with, we had two children. But the man, my husband, I had my two younger children with took my two oldest kids like his own. 20 years passed now since he had passed away, he was not treaty though, he was a white man. He was taken as one of ours though, like a Treaty. He lived with us on the reserve.
I was probably 10 or 11 years old when I was at Residential school. I remember all of a sudden the Principal came in and the main Nun, they came to get me. We drove over to this place, it was a hospital called Holy Family at the time in Prince Albert, they took me inside, took me to the children’s ward. I was wondering why I was there until it was supper time. The children there all were getting supper except for me. I didn’t get any supper. They came put something by my bed that says ‘fasting’, I didn’t know what that meant. Next morning, they came to get me and took me to the operating room, they had taken out my tonsils. For what ever reason I didn’t know why they did that to me, my parent’s were not notified at all. I wasn’t even sick. That night I stayed there for one night and back to the Residential school to the infirmary room where they kept me for 4 days. That’s what they do, they don’t notify the parents at all. They did whatever they wanted to us.
Marjorie:
I don’t Cree as good as my sister here, my Cree is broken. My life story begins I was born by the river in a shack. There were three old ladies who were the mid-wives. My mom says I was the easiest to be born but also her biggest headache growing up. What I was told to me, was that after the afterbirth, I was wrapped up in a cloth by the mid-wives, they had called my dad with a small cloth and told him to go hang the cloth up in a tree. My older siblings: four older brothers and Shelia, they all had to sit outside the door in the dark while I was born. Sometimes I think my afterbirth hangs on the tree by the river. I know this because I love nature so much, I have this big yard, I love having it clean, and trimmed and everything. I think I have the biggest yard on this reserve my late husband worked tirelessly making it so our children and their children can grow up there. And we live right by the lake, so the kids can swim, slide, ski and play volleyball. My yard is used for family reunions every year. We still have to organize activities and meals for the upcoming reunion in July.
I’ve been blessed with 5 children, four daughters and one son. I am very proud of my son, he plays hockey. He had travelled to hockey Texas, New Brunswick, in Quebec. He plays local now. And he always checks up on me here. I live with one daughter now, a couple of years ago she had a brain tumour and got it removed. Actually, she had had two surgeries in her brain that affected her vision, visionary impaired. But still a hard worker. Stills lives with me. My oldest daughter lives almost in my yard, she has her children, her boys come to my house to help around at times.
Education wise, I went to school grade 1-2 at Ahtahkakoop. After one month in Grade 3, I was sent to Residential school in Prince Albert. I was there for 3 years. Residential school is a life changer! When I got sent, I thought my mom hated me, that’s why I was sent away. My experience at Residential school there was negative. The night before we got left to Residential school, I remember my mom went to Debden to go buy me some clothes. And I was so proud of these clothes. I had a card board suitcase where I had extra clothes. I remember being all dressed up. I had long hair, she made braids. She made this school sound so nice. I was going to fed, given clothes, warm bed to sleep, I don’t remember my father being around a lot back then. The memory I kept is my mom sitting at the wood pile, watching the flames. And called us to go hunt some gophers, we had used water we got down the lake to flush out the gophers and knock them on the head to kill them. We managed to get one gopher. She cleaned it and put a stick through the gopher like she was going to roast it. She put the gopher over the fire to cook it. When she was done she called us, now there was four of us plus herself. We ate that little gopher for our supper. We were probably very hungry but that gopher was very tasty. It was delicious and that was our supper. We went to bed went the sun went down and got up when the sun was up because we had no electricity only those oil lamps. We had cows, horses, pigs, chickens and our own garden. Me and my older brother James, our chore was to get these little pails and milk the cows, we had 2 cows. We bring the milk back, leave the milk on the table, because when we leave milk on the table the cream rises, my mom would skim off the cream and put it in a jar. My mom would save some for tea, coffee and the rest she saved it in a jar. In the jar, we had our cream, milk and butter. How healthy is that, we also had our garden. We had potatoes, carrots, and onions. The memory I have is that garden was fenced off, 3 steps of platform going up and going down.
My memory is getting up on the platform and my mother had a black flared skirt. I had made her put her black skirt on me, and the waist part of the skirt it went up to my neck. I put a pin around my neck to make it look like I was a priest standing on this platform raising up my arms pretending to be a priest. And the animals were my congregation roaming around in my yard. I did become a priest, and I think way back then I knew I was going to go into priesthood. But I nursed for 2 years, I worked at students’ services at 9 years, came back on the reserve I was a teacher-aid, I was at numerous jobs on the reserve. I’m not an idol person. I don’t like being idol. I worked for the NNAP worker for about 20 plus years. I had organized road blocks, promote drug and alcohol awareness, used to have fun days at the north end, prayer walks, for protection and good health. Because without God in our lives we will have a lot of negativities in our reserve. I am retired, but when I am called or if they need help of some sort, I’ll go help or become involved, like what I’m doing right now. I’ve been known to be a knowledge keeper, I suppose I can accept that, I have a lot of memories, I think about my teachers my first teacher was Ms. Craft, my grade 2 teacher was Ms. Playlenn my grade 3 was Ms. Armbruceder. When I was in Residential school it was very negative. My first teacher in there (Res.school) I swear she was a witch, she was very mean, she had one green eye and one blue eye. There was a girl from up north who sat next to me on the left side, pretty big girl and she didn’t master the English language yet and this teacher would ask her a question and she would not answer and the teacher would get so mad at her. I looked at this poor girl thinking to leave her alone. The teacher went out of the classroom for a bit and she came in with a stick. I remember the teacher beating her with this stick, I can still hear those whacks. I remember thinking you can not beat learning into us. It was a very bad experience. I remember thinking she was a witch! For grade 3 at the residence, we had a teacher from South Africa. She was really really dark and I was so scared of her. I was scared of her because that was the first time I had seen a woman from South Africa. I remember I was looking at her, I couldn’t never look at her. Because she was so dark, I can only see the whites of her eyes, her mouth were very pink and her teeth were white. But that was the first time I seen a person from that Country, and when you’re trying to learn but your scared then you can’t really learn because you’re not relaxed. Sometimes I think if I hadn’t had these teachers, would I had been as smart as my sister and my brothers. There was a lot of fear for me and I had a number at Residential School it was number H2166. H is for “Hut”, 21 is from Hut 21 and my number is 66. Everything I owned, of my belongings had a white tag sewn into the collars. When it is time for laundry they know which shirt was mine, which shoes, because of the H2166. And we had those old steel bunk beds, because it was an old army barracks. All you are given was a mattress, white bedspread to cover with and white sheet, pillow and a fire blanket at your foot. Radiators for heat, but they didn’t do the job. We were always cold. We would try sleep together at times at night so we warm up, but we always get in trouble for that.
There was sexual abuse in my dorm, but not from the supervisors to student, but from girl to girl. They wanted me to participate in assaulting this one girl, and I refused. And when you refuse to do what they wanted they beat you up. I thought I’d rather get beat up then participate in the assault. We had a boss she had a gang about 10 girls and she tells you what to do and you got to do as told. This one time I was told to crawl over the girl’s washroom stall climb through the attic door and get into the storage room and steal these things for us. So I had to do it, because I was scared. I climbed up the attic and went to the storage, it was dark and hot in there, I was scared. So, I threw the stuff down to those girls, and climbed my way back. As I got there, our supervisor was standing there, she grabbed me and slapped my face back and forth, back and forth, and I was only 8 years old or not even 8 yet. I was getting the slapping of my life. And that changes you, it hardens your heart, it did a lot of negative things to me. I got caught stealing all these stuff. I remember looking at the boss and she had a big smile on her face, I remember thinking this must have been a set up. I remember being sick, and I was allowed to stay in my bunk, it was very cold. I remember they fed me supper and it was this broth in a little pail, the grease was roasted in the top of the broth. I had to eat it because I was so hungry. It was disguising. I remember wearing an apron and I had shredded mine; I must have been so angry to shred mine into pieces, they made us wear these aprons. I had this strength to shred my apron. Then I got punished for doing that to my apron. I didn’t like Residential school at all. It was a very negative experience.
My father’s last name came from Scotland. “Isbister” They came across and settled in the Little Red River area, and my dad’s family moved from Wynyard. Then my dad’s dad was a farmer instructor and they lived in that big house but it burnt. And our dad married Jacob Masuskapoe’s daughter but she had passed away. Then my dad had a second wife, which was my mom. My father’s first wife, they didn’t have children just one adopted girl and she lives in Town of Big River. She’s our adopted sister. So, it was I believe that my mom had an arranged marriage with our dad, so that my granny can continue her affair with my dad, that is my belief. And there was 9 of us, I have 6 brothers and 2 sisters and myself. My father’s name was Thomas Isbister. He was half breed.
Sheila:
The first wife he had was the daughter of the deceased Jacob Masuskapoe. They had no children. This was the time my father’s dad was a farmer instructor and he met his first wife. Jacob really loved his son in law, this is where my father became status Indian he went to the whole process. To become Indian Status. So, that’s where originally the first Isbister came from, it came before the band reformandum.
My mother was Racheal Masuskapoe then Peekeekoot then she married our dad. Our siblings are oldest is Lester, Late Walter, Sheila, Melvin, James, Marg, Gerald, Jack and Janice, and we all Educated. Our youngest sister is a Pentecostal pastor, Janice. But our mom said that she was an original Masuskapoe. Peekeekoot- there was Sam, James, Clifford, Austin, Allen, Andrew and some are missing. We are all related. Very close related.
We used to do walk a thon, to do fund raising, we used to do square dance competitions. We never got a cent from the band. We raised our own money to attend to these competitions. We have these buckles that I have to give to my dancers. I found them in my basement.
Marjorie:
After church service they went down to the tip between the old church and treatment center. They had put a blanket on the ground, they all sat around, they talked about band and church business. I sat by my mother the whole time, I had to be quiet. Then there was this one lady, she stood up to talk and when she stood up, all of them stood up, I don’t know who this lady was but to me it said that when she stood up to talk they all had respect for her and stood up to listen to her. I think we need to revive that. That a woman has a very special place in our community in the lives of our people. We have to claim back that respect, and reach out to the young men, all men, to respect women. They were born from woman; they’ve been nursed by the women. And they should respect right from when they are born as young girls, they should be respected. That little girl should be treated differently than the little boy. And the love is the same for both but the care of them is so different. We need to place the woman back in that proper place of respect and honour. We need to do that. Women had lost their place and needs to be revived.
I know mom used to talk to us before we used to leave the house. We were so obedient we didn’t know what disobedience was. We didn’t we know that she was our mother. I remember one time I talked back, and I swore at her, because she was mean, and she was on my case. That’s one thing that haunts my memory was that I swore at my mother. Today I pray, I pray that she forgives me. I know she is listening. But mom, you were wicked and mean. But she meant well, she didn’t know how. She must have had a lot of unsolved anger. She was a single parent and did her best. I think she did a darn good job. Us, children, are the way we are because of her. She taught us to never give up. No more how tough life is.
My late husband’s original name came from the Hobbema area. And I don’t really know. We never talked about that.
Sheila:
I wish for the young people, the walk they are walking right now is tough, but to not ever give up in life. Also to have faith in our culture and church ways. Prayers are important in any culture. I believe in the Indian ways, I take tobacco, print and gift to an elder to pray to our creator to bless us, this land and our lives. The Elders used to say this to us, to never give up on our prayers. The young people need to remember this, I pray for our young people every night and morning also for the Elders that are still with us today. There isn’t a lot of us today that are still alive. I want to Thank you too for taking the time to record our stories so they can be archived for the future generations. Hiy Hiy
Marjorie:
We need to be known as the Elders of this community and utilize us more often, we need more Elders in this school. I think Education should be assigning the Elders to visit the school every week. We can offer different suggestions. We can help out the young people and the people who work there. I want the young people to know who they are related to, to even recognize us as their grandma and great grandma. I would like to be more visible in the school. It’s also to talk about problems, its ok to talk to me about that, I would not judge anything. But I will try direct them to the right path. The school need to use us more so we can talk to the school kids about our past and what worked for us.
I went to the welfare office, and I saw a lot of young people lining up for welfare, I was stunned to see that. Why aren’t they getting educated out there? Why are they staying back? Maybe they are afraid to leave the reserve. Maybe, so if that’s the case. Why don’t they bring Education here.
Past history, I hardly remember. But I do know that Chief Ahtahkakoop was really smart. The priest that had arrived here at that time when Ahtahkakoop was here they worked good together. This is where we got our Anglican-Cree ways. Still today, we pursue this way.
And myself, I grew up in an area by Debden, where my parents had land. As my older brothers grew up, we had to move back here so they can attend school. We used to live by a river. I remember late Allan Starblanket, he built a bridge so they can walk across the bridge to attend school. There was still along ways to walk after they crossed the bridge, as the school was far ways yet. I remember my dad standing by the door, he was watching my two older brothers walking to school one morning as they were holding hands. He got very emotional and began to cry. He says, “now my sons, school system has taken over your lives, no more freedom, you are all be going to school for 12 years, to get education. I pray for nothing but the best for you both.”
From there I grew up to the age where I had to start school. But when I had to start school we had to move from our home. This time we moved closer to school. But we still had to walk to school. No matter how cold it got, we still had to walk. Pretty soon, the river began to flood. The men gathered again to build a bridge for students to cross the bridge to go to school, by this time there was lot of us now attending school. We went to the reserve school here, until we got sent to a Residential School at Prince Albert called, All Saints Schools. I was there for 2 years. I really hated it there; we were treated so badly. We were treated bad in all ways. I don’t really want to talk about it too much, but we were malnourished. We were not treated good, at times it was so cold in our dorms, there was 5 of us girls in that dorm. The sister that kept us was so old. The food that was fed to us was very poor, rotten at times, but if we didn’t eat, then we starve. At night time it was so cold, there were times where we had to sleep together to warm up, then when we get caught, we get a beating. The teacher we had, was so mean, she would yell at us and also call us dumb, like we didn’t know anything.
I finally finished school, and I started a family. I had my children. My oldest is 65 years old now. We both receive the old age pension today. (a laughter). The first man I was with, we had two children. But the man, my husband, I had my two younger children with took my two oldest kids like his own. 20 years passed now since he had passed away, he was not treaty though, he was a white man. He was taken as one of ours though, like a Treaty. He lived with us on the reserve.
I was probably 10 or 11 years old when I was at Residential school. I remember all of a sudden the Principal came in and the main Nun, they came to get me. We drove over to this place, it was a hospital called Holy Family at the time in Prince Albert, they took me inside, took me to the children’s ward. I was wondering why I was there until it was supper time. The children there all were getting supper except for me. I didn’t get any supper. They came put something by my bed that says ‘fasting’, I didn’t know what that meant. Next morning, they came to get me and took me to the operating room, they had taken out my tonsils. For what ever reason I didn’t know why they did that to me, my parent’s were not notified at all. I wasn’t even sick. That night I stayed there for one night and back to the Residential school to the infirmary room where they kept me for 4 days. That’s what they do, they don’t notify the parents at all. They did whatever they wanted to us.
Marjorie:
I don’t Cree as good as my sister here, my Cree is broken. My life story begins I was born by the river in a shack. There were three old ladies who were the mid-wives. My mom says I was the easiest to be born but also her biggest headache growing up. What I was told to me, was that after the afterbirth, I was wrapped up in a cloth by the mid-wives, they had called my dad with a small cloth and told him to go hang the cloth up in a tree. My older siblings: four older brothers and Shelia, they all had to sit outside the door in the dark while I was born. Sometimes I think my afterbirth hangs on the tree by the river. I know this because I love nature so much, I have this big yard, I love having it clean, and trimmed and everything. I think I have the biggest yard on this reserve my late husband worked tirelessly making it so our children and their children can grow up there. And we live right by the lake, so the kids can swim, slide, ski and play volleyball. My yard is used for family reunions every year. We still have to organize activities and meals for the upcoming reunion in July.
I’ve been blessed with 5 children, four daughters and one son. I am very proud of my son, he plays hockey. He had travelled to hockey Texas, New Brunswick, in Quebec. He plays local now. And he always checks up on me here. I live with one daughter now, a couple of years ago she had a brain tumour and got it removed. Actually, she had had two surgeries in her brain that affected her vision, visionary impaired. But still a hard worker. Stills lives with me. My oldest daughter lives almost in my yard, she has her children, her boys come to my house to help around at times.
Education wise, I went to school grade 1-2 at Ahtahkakoop. After one month in Grade 3, I was sent to Residential school in Prince Albert. I was there for 3 years. Residential school is a life changer! When I got sent, I thought my mom hated me, that’s why I was sent away. My experience at Residential school there was negative. The night before we got left to Residential school, I remember my mom went to Debden to go buy me some clothes. And I was so proud of these clothes. I had a card board suitcase where I had extra clothes. I remember being all dressed up. I had long hair, she made braids. She made this school sound so nice. I was going to fed, given clothes, warm bed to sleep, I don’t remember my father being around a lot back then. The memory I kept is my mom sitting at the wood pile, watching the flames. And called us to go hunt some gophers, we had used water we got down the lake to flush out the gophers and knock them on the head to kill them. We managed to get one gopher. She cleaned it and put a stick through the gopher like she was going to roast it. She put the gopher over the fire to cook it. When she was done she called us, now there was four of us plus herself. We ate that little gopher for our supper. We were probably very hungry but that gopher was very tasty. It was delicious and that was our supper. We went to bed went the sun went down and got up when the sun was up because we had no electricity only those oil lamps. We had cows, horses, pigs, chickens and our own garden. Me and my older brother James, our chore was to get these little pails and milk the cows, we had 2 cows. We bring the milk back, leave the milk on the table, because when we leave milk on the table the cream rises, my mom would skim off the cream and put it in a jar. My mom would save some for tea, coffee and the rest she saved it in a jar. In the jar, we had our cream, milk and butter. How healthy is that, we also had our garden. We had potatoes, carrots, and onions. The memory I have is that garden was fenced off, 3 steps of platform going up and going down.
My memory is getting up on the platform and my mother had a black flared skirt. I had made her put her black skirt on me, and the waist part of the skirt it went up to my neck. I put a pin around my neck to make it look like I was a priest standing on this platform raising up my arms pretending to be a priest. And the animals were my congregation roaming around in my yard. I did become a priest, and I think way back then I knew I was going to go into priesthood. But I nursed for 2 years, I worked at students’ services at 9 years, came back on the reserve I was a teacher-aid, I was at numerous jobs on the reserve. I’m not an idol person. I don’t like being idol. I worked for the NNAP worker for about 20 plus years. I had organized road blocks, promote drug and alcohol awareness, used to have fun days at the north end, prayer walks, for protection and good health. Because without God in our lives we will have a lot of negativities in our reserve. I am retired, but when I am called or if they need help of some sort, I’ll go help or become involved, like what I’m doing right now. I’ve been known to be a knowledge keeper, I suppose I can accept that, I have a lot of memories, I think about my teachers my first teacher was Ms. Craft, my grade 2 teacher was Ms. Playlenn my grade 3 was Ms. Armbruceder. When I was in Residential school it was very negative. My first teacher in there (Res.school) I swear she was a witch, she was very mean, she had one green eye and one blue eye. There was a girl from up north who sat next to me on the left side, pretty big girl and she didn’t master the English language yet and this teacher would ask her a question and she would not answer and the teacher would get so mad at her. I looked at this poor girl thinking to leave her alone. The teacher went out of the classroom for a bit and she came in with a stick. I remember the teacher beating her with this stick, I can still hear those whacks. I remember thinking you can not beat learning into us. It was a very bad experience. I remember thinking she was a witch! For grade 3 at the residence, we had a teacher from South Africa. She was really really dark and I was so scared of her. I was scared of her because that was the first time I had seen a woman from South Africa. I remember I was looking at her, I couldn’t never look at her. Because she was so dark, I can only see the whites of her eyes, her mouth were very pink and her teeth were white. But that was the first time I seen a person from that Country, and when you’re trying to learn but your scared then you can’t really learn because you’re not relaxed. Sometimes I think if I hadn’t had these teachers, would I had been as smart as my sister and my brothers. There was a lot of fear for me and I had a number at Residential School it was number H2166. H is for “Hut”, 21 is from Hut 21 and my number is 66. Everything I owned, of my belongings had a white tag sewn into the collars. When it is time for laundry they know which shirt was mine, which shoes, because of the H2166. And we had those old steel bunk beds, because it was an old army barracks. All you are given was a mattress, white bedspread to cover with and white sheet, pillow and a fire blanket at your foot. Radiators for heat, but they didn’t do the job. We were always cold. We would try sleep together at times at night so we warm up, but we always get in trouble for that.
There was sexual abuse in my dorm, but not from the supervisors to student, but from girl to girl. They wanted me to participate in assaulting this one girl, and I refused. And when you refuse to do what they wanted they beat you up. I thought I’d rather get beat up then participate in the assault. We had a boss she had a gang about 10 girls and she tells you what to do and you got to do as told. This one time I was told to crawl over the girl’s washroom stall climb through the attic door and get into the storage room and steal these things for us. So I had to do it, because I was scared. I climbed up the attic and went to the storage, it was dark and hot in there, I was scared. So, I threw the stuff down to those girls, and climbed my way back. As I got there, our supervisor was standing there, she grabbed me and slapped my face back and forth, back and forth, and I was only 8 years old or not even 8 yet. I was getting the slapping of my life. And that changes you, it hardens your heart, it did a lot of negative things to me. I got caught stealing all these stuff. I remember looking at the boss and she had a big smile on her face, I remember thinking this must have been a set up. I remember being sick, and I was allowed to stay in my bunk, it was very cold. I remember they fed me supper and it was this broth in a little pail, the grease was roasted in the top of the broth. I had to eat it because I was so hungry. It was disguising. I remember wearing an apron and I had shredded mine; I must have been so angry to shred mine into pieces, they made us wear these aprons. I had this strength to shred my apron. Then I got punished for doing that to my apron. I didn’t like Residential school at all. It was a very negative experience.
My father’s last name came from Scotland. “Isbister” They came across and settled in the Little Red River area, and my dad’s family moved from Wynyard. Then my dad’s dad was a farmer instructor and they lived in that big house but it burnt. And our dad married Jacob Masuskapoe’s daughter but she had passed away. Then my dad had a second wife, which was my mom. My father’s first wife, they didn’t have children just one adopted girl and she lives in Town of Big River. She’s our adopted sister. So, it was I believe that my mom had an arranged marriage with our dad, so that my granny can continue her affair with my dad, that is my belief. And there was 9 of us, I have 6 brothers and 2 sisters and myself. My father’s name was Thomas Isbister. He was half breed.
Sheila:
The first wife he had was the daughter of the deceased Jacob Masuskapoe. They had no children. This was the time my father’s dad was a farmer instructor and he met his first wife. Jacob really loved his son in law, this is where my father became status Indian he went to the whole process. To become Indian Status. So, that’s where originally the first Isbister came from, it came before the band reformandum.
My mother was Racheal Masuskapoe then Peekeekoot then she married our dad. Our siblings are oldest is Lester, Late Walter, Sheila, Melvin, James, Marg, Gerald, Jack and Janice, and we all Educated. Our youngest sister is a Pentecostal pastor, Janice. But our mom said that she was an original Masuskapoe. Peekeekoot- there was Sam, James, Clifford, Austin, Allen, Andrew and some are missing. We are all related. Very close related.
We used to do walk a thon, to do fund raising, we used to do square dance competitions. We never got a cent from the band. We raised our own money to attend to these competitions. We have these buckles that I have to give to my dancers. I found them in my basement.
Marjorie:
After church service they went down to the tip between the old church and treatment center. They had put a blanket on the ground, they all sat around, they talked about band and church business. I sat by my mother the whole time, I had to be quiet. Then there was this one lady, she stood up to talk and when she stood up, all of them stood up, I don’t know who this lady was but to me it said that when she stood up to talk they all had respect for her and stood up to listen to her. I think we need to revive that. That a woman has a very special place in our community in the lives of our people. We have to claim back that respect, and reach out to the young men, all men, to respect women. They were born from woman; they’ve been nursed by the women. And they should respect right from when they are born as young girls, they should be respected. That little girl should be treated differently than the little boy. And the love is the same for both but the care of them is so different. We need to place the woman back in that proper place of respect and honour. We need to do that. Women had lost their place and needs to be revived.
I know mom used to talk to us before we used to leave the house. We were so obedient we didn’t know what disobedience was. We didn’t we know that she was our mother. I remember one time I talked back, and I swore at her, because she was mean, and she was on my case. That’s one thing that haunts my memory was that I swore at my mother. Today I pray, I pray that she forgives me. I know she is listening. But mom, you were wicked and mean. But she meant well, she didn’t know how. She must have had a lot of unsolved anger. She was a single parent and did her best. I think she did a darn good job. Us, children, are the way we are because of her. She taught us to never give up. No more how tough life is.
My late husband’s original name came from the Hobbema area. And I don’t really know. We never talked about that.
Sheila:
I wish for the young people, the walk they are walking right now is tough, but to not ever give up in life. Also to have faith in our culture and church ways. Prayers are important in any culture. I believe in the Indian ways, I take tobacco, print and gift to an elder to pray to our creator to bless us, this land and our lives. The Elders used to say this to us, to never give up on our prayers. The young people need to remember this, I pray for our young people every night and morning also for the Elders that are still with us today. There isn’t a lot of us today that are still alive. I want to Thank you too for taking the time to record our stories so they can be archived for the future generations. Hiy Hiy
Marjorie:
We need to be known as the Elders of this community and utilize us more often, we need more Elders in this school. I think Education should be assigning the Elders to visit the school every week. We can offer different suggestions. We can help out the young people and the people who work there. I want the young people to know who they are related to, to even recognize us as their grandma and great grandma. I would like to be more visible in the school. It’s also to talk about problems, its ok to talk to me about that, I would not judge anything. But I will try direct them to the right path. The school need to use us more so we can talk to the school kids about our past and what worked for us.
I went to the welfare office, and I saw a lot of young people lining up for welfare, I was stunned to see that. Why aren’t they getting educated out there? Why are they staying back? Maybe they are afraid to leave the reserve. Maybe, so if that’s the case. Why don’t they bring Education here.