THE PEOPLE OF STONEY CREEK had never stopped pushing the Catholic Church and the Department of Indian Affairs to set up a day school on the reserve. We felt that it was too hard, for parents as well as the children, to send the boys and girls off to Lejac in September each year, and to see nothing of them until July of the next year. We hardly knew our children when they came home in the summer. Brothers and sisters were separated in the school. Our people knew that the residential school system was destroying Native family life. Our culture and our language would have vanished from the village without the elders keeping them alive.
Finally, in 1951, the villagers had their wish. A day school was set up on the reserve. From the beginning, we had nothing but trouble with the school.
The major problem was with the teachers. The Department of Indian Affairs would never pay the teachers what they would have received if they had worked in the public school system. The result was that almost always, our children received instruction from poorly qualified teachers who had trouble finding jobs in the white community. More than this, many of the teachers had had no previous contact with Natives. Suddenly, they were expected to live on a reserve, with its lack of modern facilities, its isolation from the kind of life and companionship familiar to them, and a culture which often seemed strange to them.
Oh, it was one crisis after another!
One poor soul I remember well. She had come from the United States, a middle-aged woman with two children. She must have watched every Hollywood movie ever made which showed Indians scalping and burning and raping. She did not understand our people, and because she did not understand us, she was afraid. Her solution to her problems was to drink.
I remember talking to a social worker from the provincial Department of Welfare, Bridget Moran, about this teacher. She told me that the Indian Agent, a man named Mr. Howe, asked her to visit the teacher and investigate charges being made about the operation of the day school. The children of Stoney Creek, he said, were complaining to their parents about the names the teacher called them, and the abuse she heaped on them as potential scalpers, rapists, and cannibals.
“I called in at the teacherage after school hours,” Bridget told me. “It was winter and was already dusk when I knocked on the teacherage door. I found the teacher crouched in the dark, with doors and windows barricaded. The poor soul believed that she was in an ambush and was expecting a raid at any moment. She could visualize herself and her two children with scalps missing. She was convinced that there was a lineup of males, men and boys, outside her door, patiently waiting their turn in order to enter her house and rape her. From what she said, I gathered that she and her children spent every night in the dark. She seemed to feel that a light in her teacherage would be the signal for an attack!”
I spent many nights with this woman, trying to calm her fears, and, if I am honest, also doing my best to keep her from drinking. In the end, she returned to United States. When I last heard of her, she was receiving treatment in a psychiatric hospital in Washington State.
This woman was an extreme example of the kind of teacher employed in our day school; others came and went, leaving little to remind us that they had once spent some time in our village.
Finally, the Catholic Church, the Department of Indian Affairs, and the Chief and Band Council decided to set up a school in Vanderhoof, and to bus the children from Stoney Creek into Vanderhoof each day. St. Joseph’s School came into being. It solved some, if not all, of the problems of our children’s education.
We seemed to overcome one problem only to be faced with another. Until 1957, our men could always count on making money cutting ties for the railway. This was piece work, and was seasonal, but until 1957, it brought needed cash into the village. In 1957, the railway companies decided to use a different type of wood and to treat ties in processing plants. Suddenly, there was no money to be made from the railway.
Lazare and I were desperate. We had bought an old truck and were making payments of fifty-six dollars each month for it. We now had our children with us for twelve months of every year, which was our wish, but where was the money for food and clothing to come from? We sat at our homemade table and added and subtracted, but no matter how many scraps of paper we filled with figures, there was still no money to meet our expenses.
Finally, in desperation, I went to Sister Superior in St. John’s Hospital in Vanderhoof.
“I wonder,” I said, “if you would give me a job cleaning or in the laundry?”
“Don’t you have children at home?”
“Yes,” I said, “I have six of my children at home.”
“How old is the youngest?”
“That’s Gordie,” I answered. “He’s nine years old.”
She looked at me for a few minutes. Then she said, “You have a family at home and you should look after them. I think your place is in the home.”
I said, “We’re desperate. Somebody has to go to work. My husband can’t work, because the kind of work he was doing isn’t done any more.”
She seemed to think for a long time. Finally she said, “I will put your name down. If we need you, we’ll call you.”
A week went by. One cold windy morning in April, a taxi drew up to our door.
“You are to go to the hospital tomorrow morning for work,” said the taxi driver.
Early the next morning—I remember there was a cold north wind blowing—I got up early and hiked over the creek to Mike Ketlo’s house. From there I phoned a taxi to pick me up for work. The taxi cost me five dollars, which was just about what I made for my first day’s work at the hospital. Little did I know then that I would work in the hospital for thirteen years.
This was my first real venture into the white world. I had worked for white people like Mrs. Silver before I was married, and I had knocked on many doors in the white community, trading fish or moccasins for used clothing, but at those times, I was always Mary the Indian. Suddenly, I found myself working side by side with white people. I was expected to talk to them, to laugh with them, to eat and drink tea with them.
No! It was impossible! I was so shy that I wouldn’t go into the tea room when we had our breaks. I would take my tea and sandwich and sit outside, or slip into the laundry room. I couldn’t eat in front of white people. I would hide my food. I was ashamed even to drink tea in the same room with them—I felt as if they would hear the tea as it went down into my stomach!
More than one person befriended me. A German woman, who did not speak very good English, coaxed me to come into the tearoom with her. “Come on,” she would say. “Nobody bite you!”
Another woman, Mrs. Morrison, who worked in the laundry, often asked me to join her on our coffee breaks. “Come along, Mary,” she would say to me. “I’ll sit with you. I promise that I won’t leave you.”
It took a very long time before I was able to go into that room, with white people all around me, and eat my sandwich and drink my tea with any feeling of ease.
My routine was the same each day. I cleaned the first floor of the hospital, and when that was finished, I went into the laundry in the basement and ironed and folded clothes. Twenty minutes before quitting time, I went back upstairs and ran over the hall floor with a dust mop. By that time, I had worked my eight hours.
Since Stoney Creek was nine miles from Vanderhoof and there was no bus service, getting back and forth to work was a problem for me. Sometimes our old truck made the trip, sometimes I hitchhiked, sometimes I walked.
One day in February, when I had been working in the hospital for a few months, Lazare said to me, “I don’t know how you’ll get to work tomorrow. I can’t get the truck to start.”
Now, here was a problem! I had never been late for work, no matter what problems I had getting there, and that night, I promised myself that I would arrive at work on time the next morning.
I didn’t sleep that night. At three o’clock in the morning, my son Ernie (who was about twelve years old at the time) and I climbed out of bed and prepared for the long walk into town. The road was a sheet of ice—there had been a thaw earlier followed by a deep frost. I put heavy men’s socks over my boots and Ernie and I started out. We walked on glare ice for four hours.
I arrived at work a few minutes before I was to start cleaning the first floor. I was just about dead, I was so tired. I was in a panic. “I don’t think I will be able to work,” I said to myself.
Mrs. Morrison looked at me. “Mary,” she said, “whatever is the matter?”
I told her that my young son and I had been walking since three o’clock in the morning on glare ice to make sure that I got to work on time.
“None of that now,” she said to me. “You go into the night watchman’s room and sleep there for a few hours. Mrs. Adams and I will manage without you.” And oh, did that cot in the night watchman’s room feel good when I finally stretched out.
I knew that between the struggle to get back and forth to the hospital and the work I had to do when I arrived home after my eight hours of employment, I wasn’t going to be able to go on. I had six children attending school. I had to wash clothes, bake bread and buns—one night, I remember I baked seventy-two buns!—make supper, clean the house, all after a hard day’s work. We were still living in our little cabin. I had none of the modern conveniences such as running water or an electric stove. Everything was done the hard way. The kids were as helpful as they could be, but it was still too big a load for one woman.
I tried one thing after another. For a while, I rented a small house in Vanderhoof. My pay was $125 each month. When I had paid the rent, power, lights, and sewer for the house I had less than $100 left to feed and clothe myself and our six children. The house was small, but I thought I was in heaven when I turned on taps and out came hot and cold water!
During that time, in order to bring in a little extra money, I found a job on my day off. I cleaned house for the hospital bookkeeper and his wife, a woman who worked in medical records. How good they were to me! I felt at home with them; never once did this couple give me the feeling that I was lower than they were.
A friend of mine, Margaret Antoine, was working at the hospital. We were both paying rent and having a hard time stretching our pay to cover our expenses. We talked things over.
“The weather is getting nice,” said Margaret.
“Yes,” I said. “If we had tents, we could live in them for the summer and save the money we are paying out in rent.”
No sooner said than done! I bought a big tent. Lazare put down flooring and built walls about three feet high and I set up my tent. Margaret set her tent up beside me. We used to laugh that we still had running water—we were on the edge of a creek. The walk back and forth to the hospital was about three miles, but at least we were not paying out money for rent.
We were tough in those days! We had a stove inside the tent for cooking and warmth, and as long as the weather stayed warm and dry, we enjoyed living out of doors. Eventu-ally, Margaret Antoine’s sister Virgie set up her tent beside us. A little later we were joined by my sister-in-law Celena. We were like a little Native village, there on the edge of Vander-hoof.
We had only one problem—one of the doctors was worried that we were using the creek water for drinking and cooking.
“I’ll let all of you stay where you are,” he said, “as long as you get your drinking water from the town water supply or a proper well.”
The closest well, with an outside pump, was at Mrs. Silver’s home. This was about a mile from our camp. The kids hauled our water for drinking and cooking each day, and for the rest, washing and cleaning, we still had our running water in the creek!
The early years when I worked at the hospital were hard on Lazare and hard on our marriage.
Native women of my generation had always worked hard, but that work was done within the family and in traditional ways. It was a blow to Lazare’s pride that I was supporting the family while he was idle. His friends made remarks which hurt him—“Did you get your old lady off to work today?”—and this hurt was brought into our marital relation-ship. I did not blame him because he was unemployed. He had always been a hard worker and a good provider, and it was only force of circumstance which forced me to work out of the home. But when a man’s pride is injured, it takes more than his wife’s soothing words to heal the wounds.
It was a lucky break that the powerline was being put through in 1959. Lazare, along with many village men, found employment that summer. The work was only seasonal and finished in the fall, but at least he could feel that he was doing his part in supporting the family. The next year, 1960, he was given a part-time job at St. Joseph’s School, which paid him $100 each month.
The following year, we hit the jackpot! Lazare put in an application for a steady job as a labourer with the Department of Highways. He was lucky enough to get hired on, and worked until he was sixty-six years old, at which time he had to retire.
Now, things were easier, easier between Lazare and me, easier financially too. We saved a little money here, a little money there, and were finally able to invest in a good vehicle. My children and I could move back to Stoney Creek where we had always wanted to be. Now we had a truck which was reliable. Lazare and I were both on the day shift. We drove to work together. He would drop me at the hospital, drive on to the highway department’s yard, leave the truck there and go to the section of roadway where he was assigned to work.
There was no more hitchhiking to work, no more walking on glare ice in the middle of the night in order to get to work on time. What a change!
One day in 1972, when I had been working at the hospital for thirteen years, Father Dalton came to me.
“Mary,” he said, “we would like you to come and work at St. Joseph’s School.”
I was stunned. “Father,” I said, “what can I do in the school? I am no teacher!”
“We want you to teach the children their native language. If we don’t do this soon, the Carrier language will be lost to the new generation.”
How strange! I thought. The church took away our language and now they are trying to give it back to us.
“We will give you the same pay as you are now getting at the hospital,” he said, “and you will work fewer hours. Will you think about it? I will wait for your answer.”
I promised to think it over. To be honest, for the next few days I couldn’t think of anything else. I was torn in two directions. On the one hand, I was happy with my job in the hospital. I had become used to working with the white community, and I had very close friends on the hospital staff. On the other hand, I knew that what Father Dalton said was the truth. The new generation were the children of Natives who had attended Lejac Residential School, and who had been whipped every time they spoke their own language. Most of the parents of the students in St. Joseph’s School had lost their language. If someone didn’t teach it to the children growing up, the Carrier language would be lost forever.
I had really very little choice. I gave two weeks notice to the hospital. I still have the gift the staff gave me at my going-away party.
Many times in my life I have wondered why the church and the government got together years ago and almost destroyed our culture. I guess they thought they had to do that to convert the Native peple, the savages, as they called us. They thought that we had no God, that we didn’t know God. But a long time ago my people knew that there was a Great Spirit, a Being. In the late 1960s or the early 1970s, the church and the government must have realized their mistake, and I was caught right up in the middle of that. Maybe they were forced into giving our language and our culture back to us. Maybe the new leaders, the young people, put pressure on them. Whatever the reason, the Catholic school must have thought I was the right person for the job.
I didn’t have any teacher’s training, but I worked with the young people as best I could. I taught music and dancing, as well as the Carrier language. I knew our language, but I had to depend on Lazare for the songs and dances. He taught them to me and then I taught them to the students of St. Joseph’s School. It wasn’t easy—so little in our culture is written down.
So there I was, Mary John, formerly a student in Lejac, now a teacher of the Carrier language and songs and dances in a Catholic school. Isn’t life strange?