THE INTERVIEWER: Could you say and spell your first name and
your last name for us, please.
PHILOMENE KAPPO: Philomene Kappo; P-h-i-l-o-m-e-n-e
K-a-p-p-o.
Q. What school did you go to?
A. St. Francis Xavier.
Q. Where is that?
A. Sturgeon Lake.
Q. Sturgeon.
A. Yeah.
Q. How old were you when you first went in?
A. I think I was 6 years old. I’m not too sure of my age when I went
in.
Q. I’m just going to be making notes so just ignore me when I jot.
Did you have other brothers and sisters who went as well?
A. Yeah, I did. I had 3 older brothers and an older sister who went
before me. And then I had 2 sisters and —
I don’t think my brothers went. The school closed down in 1960 I
believe.
Q. How old were you when you left?
A. Twelve.
Q. So you went about 6 years, give or take?
A. Yeah.
Q. Where did you go when you left school?
A. I went to the town, Valleyview. I went to the Catholic School.
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Q. Was that a day school or another Residential School?
A. No. It was a day school. We were bussed in.
Q. You went back home?
A. Um-hmm.
Q. How long did you go to school there?
A. Right until Grade 11; from Grade 7 to 11.
Q. Did you graduate from high school?
A. For Grade 12 I went to Grande Prairie.
Q. Oh, okay. So you must know Marie Mitchell?
A. Yeah, I do.
Q. And Uncle Willy?
A. Yeah.
Q. Do you remember what your first day was like?
A. My first day is probably the only day —
I remember about being taken there.
Q. Explain that day.
A. And that was because —
— Speaker overcome with emotion
Q. Take your time.
A. I had really long braids. The first thing they did was they just
took my braid and they just cut it off like this (indicating). I only spoke
Cree. I didn’t know any English at that time. I was told I couldn’t speak
my language. I just don’t remember anything after that for at least 2
years. I can’t remember. I tried and tried but I can’t. I can’t remember
anything.
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Q. Does that anger you?
A. It really does. It makes me very angry. I’m just always
guessing that things must have been so bad that I’ve just hidden it away
so deep that I can’t reach it. Yet I can remember being at home when I
was 3 years old. I can remember being at home where I was happy, but I
can’t remember those 2 years. Like I said, I try and try and try. I’ve had a
couple of people trying to help me, too, at one time, but it won’t come.
Q. What else do you remember about your first day?
A. We were given sort of a uniform I guess you would call it,
because we all had to wear the same kind of clothes. We had to take off
our own clothes and they were put in a bag, just thrown in a bag and taken
upstairs into the attic. That’s where they stayed ‘til —
Usually we would get picked up by our parents on Friday evening
and we were allowed to go home for the weekend.
But they took our clothes. Then they took us to this room where
they had the bathtubs and it was so embarrassing and degrading because
we had to take off all our clothes. I had never ever been treated like that
before, and we had to take off our clothes in front of everybody there and
have our bath. If you were one of the little girls you were one of the lucky
ones because you got the clean water. The big girls weren’t so lucky
because we all had to use the same water.
I don’t remember going up to the Dormitory or to the Refectory. It
was called the Dining Room. I don’t remember being taken there to get
assigned my place at the table, or my bed, or anything. That’s all I can
remember about that first day.
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I just don’t know how I communicated my wants or my needs to
anybody because I couldn’t speak English and I couldn’t talk. I wasn’t
allowed to speak my language.
Q. Do you know your language today?
A. Yeah.
Q. You held onto it.
A. I can speak it very fluently. My mom and dad, when we used to
go home, they made sure that that’s all they spoke to us was in our
language. So all of us, even the younger ones that were not in Residential
School, my whole family speaks our own language.
Q. Did your parents go to Residential School?
A. I think my dad only was there 2 years.
Q. And your mom?
A. My mom was actually raised in there because her mom passed
away. She was just a little girl and all she had were brothers and my
grandpa didn’t think that he could raise her at home with all those males
there, so he took her. He was the one that actually took her to the school
and then the Nuns raised her.
Q. Did she ever talk about her experience?
A. No.
Q. Did they ever?
A. Never.
Q. What was it like being raised by parents who went to
Residential School?
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A. I used to feel unloved sometimes because my mom and dad
didn’t know how to give us a hug or anything. I was never told by them
that they loved me, either.
Q. Did that affect you as a parent?
A. I swore to myself that if I ever had children there was not going
to be a day that went by while they were in my presence that they would
go without a hug and without me telling them I loved them. I ended up
having only one child and he’s now twenty-eight years old. To this day I
still do that. I was lucky enough that my son doesn’t get embarrassed.
You know how young men are. Especially when he was —
I thought he might not like that when he was a teenager, but he
never has. He will hug me back and kiss me and tell me he loves me, no
matter who is around. So in that way I was lucky. And now I have 5
grandsons.
Q. All grandsons?
A. Yeah.
Q. Wow.
A. So I do the same with them.
Q. That’s nice.
A. My mom and dad were really good parents in every other way,
but that part of them was not there, probably because they were never
given that when they were little. But I never understood that.
Q. Your mother never spoke about it?
A. She still doesn’t.
Q. She won’t?
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A. No, she won’t.
Q. She’s still alive?
A. Um-hmm.
Q. And she still doesn’t talk about it. What about all this talk of
compensation and blah, blah, blah, she still won’t?
A. Well, when it first started she was always trying to defend, but in
her case I guess it was a little bit different because she got different
treatment because they raised her in there so she was treated a little bit
more special, I’m thinking. I don’t know. But she won’t.
She did tell me one time though about —
It would have been her niece, I guess. It was her turn to have a
bath and when the girl put her foot into the tub the water was really really
hot so she pulled back and 2 Nuns grabbed her and threw her in. She
ended up in the pharmacy, or whatever they called it because I don’t even
remember any more, and she eventually died from the burns on her body.
My mom had told me that story.
Q. Do you ever talk to your siblings about Residential School and
their experience?
A. My family is very closed in that area. Yet it affected the
relationship that I should have with my brothers because of that because I
wasn’t —
That was the other hard part, too. I couldn’t even talk to my
siblings. I wasn’t allowed to communicate with the boys, with my brothers.
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To this day I feel uncomfortable even talking to them, and I know they feel
the same way because of their body language, their faces, even if we’re
laughing about something.
Q. There’s still something there?
A. Yeah. That was hard because we were close before. I
remember before I went into the Residential School we were a very close
and warm loving family.
Q. What are your hopes now? Why do you think all of this has
opened up now? What are your hopes as a survivor? What do you wish
would happen?
A. Well, my wish is that people will tell their stories and let the rest
of the people hear about things that happened to them and that they were
not being made up. And I would like to see the next generations start to
learn about why their parents are the way they are.
There’s a lot of drugs and alcohol on my Reserve and I believe
that’s where it stems from because the parents were never taught how to
be parents. I’ve noticed that a lot of the children on the Reserve, if you
just give them a hug and I see one of them and I give them a hug, I can
tell that I’ve just made their day because they probably don’t see that very
often.
So my wish is that we go back to the family that was way before
Residential School times. We were taught all the important things about
loving each other and respecting everybody.
— A Short Pause
…probably about 5 or 6 months ago.
Page 8 of 14
Q. After Maureen?
A. No. Just recently.
Q. Just recently. Where did he pass away; in Edmonton?
A. In Valleyview.
Q. Oh.
A. He had a heart attack.
Q. That’s so sad.
Is there a memory that stands out more than others that you can
think of, anything that you remember from your older years in school,
anything that stands out?
A. There’s always one thing that I always used to think about and
finally I’ve been talking about it with people, and that’s the whole thing
about death. I used to be terrified of being anywhere near where there
was a dead body, just absolutely terrified.
I could never ever figure it out until I started thinking about it. Then
I thought, oh, it’s probably because of the things they used to say to us
about when you die you’re going to go to hell and the devil is going to be
there with his fork and he’s going to roll you over and over and over and
stuff like this. I guess in my mind I must have associated that dead person
with the devil, or something. I was absolutely terrified.
But a few years ago when I started working at the Valleyview
Hospital as the Aboriginal Liaison Worker, an Elder from the Reserve was
the one who blessed me with the experience of her death. Since then I’ve
never been afraid. I don’t know if she did it knowingly or not, but she
waited for me.
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Q. What did she do?
A. She was dying and I came to work at 8:30. As soon as I got
there the nurse told me that if I wanted to see her before she goes, I had
better go now. So I went. I just went to her bed and I took her hand. She
didn’t even have to say anything. She just kind of acknowledged that my
hand was in hers, but then she opened her eyes and she saw it was me.
She just took this big deep breath and then closed her eyes and just went,
like that. So I saw how peaceful that was. Like I said, I’m not afraid any
more. Those things don’t scare me anymore.
Although as I got a little bit older I knew that the thing with the devil
was just all crazy, but it still scared me. I had to go and actually
experience somebody’s dying that I let that go.
Q. What a teaching, eh?
A. Yeah. It was wonderful.
Q. Did you get to spend a lot of time with your sisters at
Residential School?
A. No. We all had our chores that we had to do so we were in
different parts of the building, the classrooms, and that, so I hardly ever
saw them. By the time I went into Residential School there was only one
of my older brothers there with me. The other one had been sent off to
Joussard. I don’t remember the name of the Residential School there.
And the other 2 were just out there. They were old enough to be out of
school. But the 2 younger ones, I don’t even remember seeing them, now
that you mention it.
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Q. Did the girls ever talk about what happened to them or what
they saw or what they witnessed?
A. No, they don’t. Actually, I’ve been having a really rough time
with one of my sisters. I just can’t seem to —
We used to be really close, up until about 7 or 8 years ago. And
then when I got sick she was getting jealous because of the time that my
mom and my other siblings were spending on me. She just hasn’t talked
to me for all that time. At first it bothered me. It bothered me and I was
angry because I didn’t ask to be sick.
Eventually —
It still bothers me at times but not as much as it did at first because
I know now that it wasn’t my problem, it’s hers. She’s the one that has to
deal with it, not me. So I just have to let it go.
Q. You said something earlier about everything ugly and nasty and
dirty about how we lives our lives and it was all related to that, everything.
Right? And that’s related. The fact that she was jealous is related to the
Residential School. So you can’t blame her or be mad at her or be angry
with her.
A. No. I was at first. I was very hurt. But then —
I do a lot of thinking when I’m in some kind of a situation like that. I
like to think of things and I realize that she had her own issues. So
eventually I just thought I would just stay out of her way because it always
hurt anyway, to even be near her, because she always made me feel like I
am invisible. I’m invisible any time I see her. So I just try not to put myself
where she is because I got tired of being hurt like that.
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Q. Do you think Canadians know about Residential Schools?
A. That’s all they know about Residential Schools. They don’t
know the whole story.
Q. Do you think it would help if they knew?
A. I think it would. At work, at the hospital, when they first started
talking about the Settlement and all that, one of the workers, one of the
Nursing Aides was in the cafeteria and she said, “Oh yeah, residential
school, I don’t think it could have been that bad.” I was sitting there. So I
said, “You don’t think so, hey, if you want to hear the real story you can
come to my office any time you want and I’ll tell you about it.” “Was it
really that bad”, she said. And I said, “Yes, and then some.” “You didn’t
even hear the half of it.” But she never did come to my office.
So people have those kinds of attitudes about Residential School.
Parts of the whole experience was positive. We learned how to
clean house and mend our socks and all that stuff, and those were
important things to learn. And we did. But the more important things were
what we didn’t get; the love. Those are what I call important, anyway.
Q. What are you doing for yourself now to heal and to get past this?
A. I pray. I’ve always prayed. I once in a while go for a sweat
because I find that they are very cleansing and comforting. So I do that. I
listen to tapes and do meditation every once in a while, too. Whenever I
start to feel a little bit tired or whatever, those are the things that I do.
Or I find a friend who will listen to me and will listen to me over and
over with the same story, no matter how many times I talk about it. She’s
a very good friend.
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Q. Okay. Good for you. Is there anything else you would like to
add before we wrap?
A. After the 2 years that I couldn’t remember there were so many
things that were so hurtful and degrading, I guess some of them would be
kind of hard to believe, alright. It was even embarrassing to tell somebody
that you were starting your period without being made to feel that you
were just dirty.
— Speaker overcome with emotion
Q. Did you ever once feel like you hated to be an Indian?
A. Yeah. I used to feel that way once in a while. We were always
being called savages and heathens.
I remember when I was still little. I stayed small for I don’t know
how many years. We all used to have a number. I was the last one. I
was number sixty-three for about 3 years. But I was just a little girl. That’s
the first thing that I remembered after that two-year period that I can’t
really remember.
We were having choir practice so I was in the front row. There
were other girls behind me. The Nun was right in front of me. To this day
I don’t know why, but she just slapped me right across my face really hard.
If the other girls wouldn’t have been standing behind me I would have hit
the floor and I could never figure out why she did that because there was
never any explanation.
Then one time I had a yardstick and back then the yardstick was
quite a bit thicker than they are now. Instead of using the strap, that’s
what this Nun used and she wouldn’t stop hitting me until the thing broke.
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It was on my hands. She was trying to make me cry and I was being very,
very stubborn. I don’t know how the heck I kept my tears back because it
hurt. It just burned like hell. She just kept hitting me and she would look
in my eyes and she would just give me another hit. Finally the yardstick
broke in half. She told me to go back to my seat and then I broke down
there. My hands burned for I don’t know how long after that.
Q. Have you ever talked to your son about these schools?
A. Not yet, but I’m going to.
Q. Why haven’t you talked to him about it?
A. I don’t know. I guess I was just being —
I was afraid to talk about it, I guess. I don’t like him to see me
crying. Some of the things like that are hard to talk about. But I will talk to
him and I will talk to my grandchildren, as well.
And I was always afraid that I wouldn’t do a good job of raising my
son and it used to just scare the heck out of me. But he turned out pretty
darned good. He’s a really good father. He has 5 little boys. They range
in age from ten years to a year and a half. He’s really good. He spends
lots of time with his babies.
Q. That’s good.
A. So that makes me happy.
Q. Do you have anything else you would like to add?
A. I just hope there are a lot of brave people, and I know we are all
very resilient because we survived all that. My hope is that all of them will
share their stories because it’s important for all the people in the country
to know what really happened.
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Q. Great. You did a really good job.
A. Thank you.
— End of Interview