Ch. 2.pdf

Two: Hard Times We used to enjoy going out miles away from the school, going on picnics, either to the beach or going fishing at the rapids north of the school. It felt so nice to get out of the enclosed playground. Most of the time, we were forced to...

Two: Hard Times We used to enjoy going out miles away from the school, going on picnics, either to the beach or going fishing at the rapids north of the school. It felt so nice to get out of the enclosed playground. Most of the time, we were forced to stay within the yard, which was surrounded by a high barbed-wire fence. It felt like getting out of prison. But I recall many times I was detained and was not able to join the crowd going to these good times if I was penal- ized for whispering during silence, or poking someone in the ribs, or swearing in Cree, as I did several times. I once wrote down “I will not whisper during silence” five hun- dred times while everyone was gone out of the school area. I really can’t recall just how many times I was made to pay for such minor offences. I was once made to walk punished – 11 – for speaking Cree  the educ at ion of augie mer a st y about twenty miles in –40°F weather with a fellow student, Abner Joseph, back to where we walked the day before, across the big lake with a strong wind blowing. I imagine the wind chill factor was about –60°F. Just because we lost one mitten each. We were very nervous and scared all the way, as we were only about eleven or twelve years old at the time. And we saw some fresh wolf tracks about six miles out on the lake and kept our eyes busy looking every which way, expecting to see some wolves following us. And we were only carrying sticks three feet long and two inches around. Not much defence against an animal like a wolf. We came back without the lost mittens as the wind and snow had covered everything that could be lost. That was January 1941, and it was that meanest of all nuns, Sister St. Mercy, who had forced us to walk in that godawful weather, only to come back empty-handed. We, of course, got the strap, twenty strokes on both hands. Also my left eye still waters and aches where I was hit a number of times by two Sisters who worked for four or five years as boys’ keepers. Sister St. Mercy again and Sister St. Joy, who was Sister Mercy’s disciple. Sister St. Mercy trained her well, at different times. They really enjoyed causing pain and other kinds of suffering as punishment for the smallest infractions. I think they were paranoid in the position they had, being masters of a lower race of creatures, Indians, as we were called. Racism Life-long – 12 – pain  a residential school memoir stereotyping “Indians from the bush, what can you expect?” was Sister Mercy’s favourite phrase. They wanted to show who was superior, and no rule or order was to be broken or spoken against. They wanted to impress upon us that all this was for our own good and the will of God, and that the order of nuns, brothers, and fathers of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI) were to some degree servants of God on Earth, and we must take any punishment without complaints. To be disobe- dient was a sin in the eyes of God. In the springtime when the cattle were mating, and all the animals were in the open yards, if we laughed too much or too loud while the bulls were doing their thing, we used to get whipped on the butts with a hose three feet long. We were chased away to another part of the schoolyard so we could not watch what was going on with the mating bulls and cows. We also spent much time watching chickens and roost- ers doing what they did best. We were allowed to watch the chickens all we wanted without interference, and we used to make bets with whatever we had in hand—nick- els, candy, or glass marbles, which the principal Father Aquinas Merton gave us occasionally. We used to make bets on how many times the rooster could mount the hens in thirty minutes. We all kept tabs. One white rooster did it nine times within thirty minutes. It was one of the – 13 –  the educ at ion of augie mer a st y lighter entertainments we enjoyed many times without interference or punishment. During the nine years I was at school at St. Therese, even though all those chickens laid eggs, not one stu- dent ever once tasted one egg at mealtime. I was once caught with three eggs I picked up outside the chicken yard where some wandering hens laid, and was made to eat them raw, right in front of my fellow watchers. Brer Lepeigne must have thought we had gone right into the chicken coop to steal from the hens. Every morning at breakfast, we ate rotten porridge and dry bread that was hard as cardboard. We always watched an impeccably white-clothed cart eight feet long being wheeled to the Fathers’ and Brothers’ dining room. Right through the centre of the refectory for all us boys and girls to turn and watch, licking our chops, all the beautiful food going past us ten feet away. It happened almost on a daily basis. Our keepers, one on the girls’ side and one on the boys’ side, banged on their clappers, and we were told to get back to our porridge and don’t turn our heads again or it would be detention or another kind of penance. Sometimes on feast days like Christmas, Easter, New Years, and other Saints’ feast days, we saw even nicer food being wheeled by. It was absolutely gorgeous, espe- cially when we were eating rotten fish or other distasteful crap. Especially during the Bishop’s visit (Rev. Martin Food as symbol of racism and neglect – 14 –  Text a residential school memoir Lajeunesse). On these days we all saw roast turkey, or steaks, roast chicken, doughnuts, and cake. Fresh cake. We used to drool and sigh, and of course we were ordered to get back to our rotten food. “Eat or I’ll make you eat it, one way or another.” I always wondered why our keepers and teachers talked about Jesus, Mary, and Joseph and all the love they had for mankind, and Jesus being born in poverty, extreme pov- erty, and we should try to emulate him and learn to take punishment for our wrongs to pay here on Earth and not later in Hell or Purgatory. Apparently they didn’t know it Hypocrisy was suffering enough to see all that beautiful food being wheeled by and only getting a smell of it. I know they never practised what they preached, not one iota. Do to others what you want them to do unto you. Be kind to others. Jesus will love you for it, and so on, and on and on and on, all the talking and preaching in church and classrooms. And what they did to us and how they admin- istered their little regime did not mean a thing to them. They never really practised what they preached, period. Whenever there were visits of Bishop M. Lajeunesse or visits from chiefs or members of council from any Indian reserve, they used to make us dress in our best clothing, provide concerts, and they even served us some edible food, beef stew or something. And they treated those northern visitors with good food and everything – 15 –  the educ at ion of augie mer a st y nice, and of course that chief or counsellor would get up at the end of the concert and speak from the stage facing all 110 children, telling us how lucky we were to be looked after in such a school as St. Therese Residential, and we should be thankful to God and to the administration for such blessings. Oh, God, I used to think, what hypocrisy. Somebody sure pulled the wool over their eyes, because that is how it was meant to look, and it happened time after time. Sometimes for punishment we were made to kneel on the cold cement floor from 8:30 p.m. until almost midnight, after everyone had gone to bed upstairs. We would fall asleep on the cold cement floor before Sister Mercy came or sent for her co-worker Sister Joy to tell us to go to bed upstairs. Then we were woken up early in the morning to go to church. We were usually awakened at 7:30 a.m., like it or not. All we used for toothpaste was salt, which the sister carried in a saucer. Salt, something we didn’t even get to use at mealtime. Yet the cows and horses were getting all they wanted in blocks in the fields. These incidents I have written about happened many times, and I have long lost count of the number of times they happened, but it was the same thing, punishment and abuse over and over again, even before these two nuns and others abused me. Racism & Neglect - treated worse – 16 – than animals