Samuel Ross
All Saints Residential School and Birtle Indian Residential School
THE INTERVIEWER: Would you please say and spell your first and last name.
SAMUEL ROSS: Samuel Ross.
Q. Can you spell that, please?
A. S-a-m-u-e-l R-o-s-s.
Q. What Residential School did you go to?
A. I went to Prince Albert All Saints School in Saskatchewan.
Q. How old were you when you went into the school?
A. I think I was about six or seven. I think it was in 1948, anyway, when we left here.
Q. How many years were you there?
A. I was there until 1953.
Q. Do you remember your first day when you went into school?
A. Oh, I don’t really know. Well, the Indian Agent and somebody else came and got us. There were four of us, eh, me and my three other brothers. They all took us and took us to the train station and they put us on a passenger train. There were older people there, I mean, schoolboys I guess who were older than us. We had to fight when we got into that train, the passenger train. They had to drag us in there you might say. We didn’t want to go. Anyway, they got us there on the train and hung onto us until the train left, until that train was moving fast enough for us not to jump out. I remember that part.
Well, anyway, we went, all four of us; two older brothers and my younger brother. One of them was younger than me. I remember that. He was a little smaller than me.
When we got to —
I remember changing trains in Hudson Bay. In Hudson Bay we changed trains. They looked after us, our older brothers. They took us to another passenger train and away we went to Prince Albert. When we got to that school in PA it was in the morning, I think, sometime in the morning that train got in and we all got off and then they put us in a big truck, you know, like a truck, not a bus. They loaded it up and they separated us when we got to that school; Junior, Intermediate, Seniors, I guess they put us in.
At that time I wasn’t able to speak English, eh. I didn’t understand English so I just spoke Cree. We didn’t understand English I guess. We couldn’t speak it. I think I was six or seven. I was pretty young then, eh.
Well, we were separated in that school; Junior Boys, Intermediate and Seniors. Same thing with the girls, I guess, but with us anyway. I was with my younger brother in Junior Boys. They put us in the Dormitory.
That school that they had there was an old Army Barracks. It wasn’t really a —
It used to be an old Army training camp. That’s why they turned it into Residential School Dormitories.
Anyway, when I was there I remember at that time, boy, I was pretty tough in 1948. The hardest part I can remember was my younger brother was smaller than me —
Philip (something) was there and Ernie George, they were smaller than me. I was a little bit bigger, but we didn’t see our older brothers. They were Intermediate and Senior, eh. Well, they used to sleep all over the place, those guys. Me, I don’t know why that —
But I was a little bit, I guess I was a little bit older for my age than that and I used to sleep —
They used to wake up those little kids, those young ones, and tell them not to sleep all over on the outside – not inside – outside all over and then they used to come and feed us carrots, our older brothers, eh, from the garden. This was in September when we went there.
Anyway we were told — later on I found out — not to speak Cree and yet we didn’t understand English. When we first went there, you know, they took all our clothes off and I remember getting a bald head. They cut off all our hair. They put that DDT on your head there, and all over your body. They figured that we were lousy or had lice, I guess, I don’t know. I remember that one. They told us not to speak Cree. Try to understand English. Every time we spoke Cree we get —
Well, they had a little stick, a willow, that we used to get.
They had straps. I seen that they had straps, the supervisors. But every time you spoke Cree they would either spank you and sometimes you didn’t go for supper just for speaking Cree.
But most of the time the food was no good either. They had very poor food that we got there.
I remember we only had one spoon when you go for breakfast, one scoop of that porridge and a tin cup of what was supposed to be tea, I guess. That little bread that was on the table when we said grace, they used to say grace in the morning, every morning. Before the grace was over we grabbed for that bread. If you were not lucky or fast enough you didn’t get any, just that little porridge there.
The way we survived the Senior Boys, our brothers, they used to come and show us how to steal potatoes and carrots, you know, from that big Drill Hall or go to the garden and get some from the garden; potatoes and carrots, turnips.
Anyway, the worst thing was we were always hungry. No food. Not enough food. Sometimes our older brothers used to come for us, you know, and they used to say to the supervisor “we’re going to take them to the skate or picture show in town”, but what they did was they took us to the dump in town, the dumps that they had in town. They used to take us across the bridge and they used to —
That’s where we had a feast. We ate everything there like
oranges —
Well, it was scrap, eh, but for us it was surviving. But it was good. Oranges and apples, even though some of them were a little bit rotten, but we ate the good part of the apples and oranges. We used to put them in big bags to bring them back to school. We used to crawl in underneath the crawl space, I remember that hole that used to be there, and hang them up there. At night we used to sneak out and go and eat what we brought back from the dump. Hunger was the main thing.
I remember me and William Lesland (ph.), we were told not to speak Cree. But we got caught one time talking to each other. They took us and they gave us a bar of soap, I remember that pink soap. You had to chew on that, take a bite of that soap. It was pink, eh. They were watching you. If you didn’t gargle with that soap, they gave you water to gargle. It’s for the next time you speak Cree you’re going to get a good licking, or you’ll have to gargle that soap again, you know. That’s what they told us. Gargle that soap so you wouldn’t speak Cree again. They washed your mouth with that.
Well, you know, you had a licking all right and then you wouldn’t go for supper just for that. Every time you spoke Cree, our language, you had to look around first before you would talk or whisper so nobody would hear you. The supervisors were all over, not just one supervisor either. They had those supervisors out there to get you in line. You had to line up for supper for your meals to go to the Dining Hall.
Your clothing. We only had one set of clothes. The clothes that we took there you had them and then they give you a set, but if you had your clothes torn or broken, that’s the way they stayed. In the winter time, those winters at that time were pretty fierce. They were cold. I don’t remember having decent mitts or even decent underwear or good footwear like shoes for winter, you know. I froze my toes quite a few times just wearing those oxfords. They were old. I froze my toes I don’t know how many times, and I froze my fingers.
But the thing that kept us to survive we used to steal those potatoes. They had a big Drill Hall there. There was a hole and we used to manage to get inside there. We would steal potatoes and then come out with a whole bunch of carrots, turnips and potatoes. That’s what we survived on. Sometimes we would go to the dump once in a while.
And then once in a while a Senior Boy would go and kill rabbits, down the hill. They used to make slingshots. In the wintertime I don’t know how they managed it but they used to get rabbits. They used to take these old pails from the dump and that’s how they cooked the rabbits, eh. They used to feed us with a lot of potatoes and those rabbits, and carrots. Some of them would throw some carrots in there.
I guess maybe that’s why we stayed a little healthier because we ate those vegetables, those carrots, turnips and potatoes.
The meals at dinner time at school were something there. I don’t know what they were making. They called it stew, I guess. One round spoon. We never heard of nothing like toast or anything. We didn’t even know it was invented yet. Supper, the same thing at supper. Maybe you get two sausages and one scoop of potato and that’s it. That bread, you were lucky to get it.
And Senior Girls, I guess they felt sorry for us. Once in a while they would throw a loaf of bread out when they used to see us hanging around the Dining Room and they were setting up the tables.
But anyway, I was there when I was six, seven, eight, nine and when I was maybe about ten, I guess, things started to change because we knew how to survive then, eh. Ourselves, we used to go to the dump and go and have a good meal over there. But still, you can’t speak Cree. You learn your English.
We went to school all right. We started to speak. As soon as we knew a little English we got away from getting a licking because we were speaking a little bit of English. We understood a little bit of English because if you didn’t, but still we wanted to speak Cree. We got caught a few times. We got a licking just for speaking Cree.
Anyway, this went on until I was thirteen, eh. I knew already how to survive, how to steal, I guess you might say, potatoes and carrots. My older brother didn’t go there. He didn’t go. Just the two of us, my younger brother wasn’t able to hack it. Just me and my late brother Joe, the two of us, were there until 1953.
The reason why I stayed ‘til 1953, my late dad died. They came and got us in May, in the Spring, at the end of May, somewhere around there. That principal told us you’re not coming back because you will be going home in about the middle of June anyway so you don’t have to come back after the funeral. That was the last time I seen that PA.
But you know out there I remember the clothing, the hunger that we went through, the lickings, all of us had to learn English, that was the worst part I can remember in that Prince Albert, all the lickings that you had in school there.
At first, yeah, when we didn’t understand English —
But the one thing I want to tell you about when I went to Birtle, later on, I went to school here in day school for about a year. And then when I went to Birtle I was about maybe sixteen, sixteen years old. I think I went to a little more day school here. When I went to Birtle that Indian Agent says “there’s no room for you. They are all filled up.” “But I tell you what”, he says, “as soon as that school opens I’m going to send you to a school where they have room.” So he came and got me and he said, “You’re going to Birtle.” “There’s no room in Brandon, Dauphin or Portage”, he said. But a lot of them went, those other young boys. So he took me, he sent me over there. I got on the train with those boys and I went to Portage and Dauphin. They got off the train. I got off in someplace, I think it was in Breslaw, or someplace —
I got off and they put me in the station wagon and they took me to Birtle School anyway.
That was the worst one, too, that school. I was sixteen years old already, I remember. That school was a farm school, you know. There were ten of us that spoke Cree; five girls who were there already and just me from here and four from Norway House. I think they were from Nelson House.
They tried to show us how to farm over there, you know, get up early at six o’clock in the morning and clean barns and work. And then from there later in the morning you got ready for school. You went to school. After school you went back to work until about supper time. And then after supper you did your homework. And if you didn’t finish your chores you had to go back and do them again.
This went on until about February. Before February —
Around January I told the principal I didn’t come here to work. I came here to get some schooling. I want to be educated. “All right”, he said. “I don’t like working in that barn, that’s it, give me a ticket and send me home.” “You’re going to go to school”, he said. I’ll give you a good job, an easy job. I’ll put you in the boiler room. So that’s where he put me, in the boiler room.
So I worked in that boiler room. I was the first guy up in the morning, digging the clinkers. That guy showed me how. There was a guy there, an elderly man, that little janitor, I guess, showed me what to do and how to work and look after the boiler room.
I worked like that. At first I didn’t mind it, you know, but then I
got —
I was the first guy up in the morning, clean the clinkers, burn the garbage, mop it, close it down, clean it and burn the garbage, make sure there was enough coal there —
Saturdays I used to go —
Fridays and Saturdays and Sundays I used to haul the coal from that one-mile siding in the boxcar to make sure that bin was full all the time with coal. I got tired of that. There were two or three guys that used to help me haul that coal out there. They were told to help me and we filled it up. We did that Saturday and Sunday.
One day I said to the principal again, maybe in February, I said, “that’s enough, send me home”, I said. “I didn’t come here to work. If I wanted to work my brother is in Thompson. I would have gone with him already”, I said. He used to send me some money, my late brother, eh. He used to send me while he was working, that older brother, send me a little. I used to get that.
What they used to do when we got money, they opened the letters, eh, and take the money. They tell you how much you got but they won’t give you fifty cents a week. The parcels they didn’t open. They just give them to you.
I used to watch those trains go by at night when I was doing my homework in that boiler room. I watched those trains going by. It’s useless. That’s when I made up my mind to leave the school, to run away from there.
And if you didn’t work you didn’t eat. That was the rule. If you didn’t do your chores you didn’t eat. You just had to work.
Anyway, when I ran away from that school that night when I left here —
My late mother gave me a good wallet and my uncle, I think, he gave me a good jack knife. I had a good jackknife all the time. I carried that jack knife and my good wallet. I wrote my late mother a letter. I said, “Send me ten dollars. I need ten dollars to buy…” I didn’t tell her how I was going to use that ten dollars. I buy a pair of gloves and put that ten dollars inside the thumb, the thumb part of the glove. She sent a parcel, too, and a scarf. So that’s what she did. She sent me a scarf and those gloves, there. I took my parcel. That’s one thing that school didn’t do was open a parcel, just the letters.
So I took that parcel down to the boiler room and I opened it there. There was ten dollars there and that’s when I made up my mind. So on Tuesday night I filled up the coal, one Tuesday in February, towards the end of February. It was snowing heavy. I used the railroad track. I looked at the map. I studied the map. I know there was a little town every ten miles marked on that. So that night I made twenty miles, eh. I started off at eight-thirty.
And when I got to that second town I waited for the train to come by, the first one. It didn’t stop. It just went right through. It was a passenger train. But the second one, I watched them all the time. They had little passenger cars behind there. That’s the one I got on. It was two dollars to get to Minnedosa on that one. I got to Minnedosa. I got off over there. It was hard walking in that snow, too, especially on the railroad track, eh. When I first left it was tough going on that railroad track. There was snow on the railroad track. It was hard walking. But I made it anyway.
When I got to Minnedosa I guess I was tired. I didn’t know about that. I went in that little station there and I asked that guy “can I rest here”, I told that janitor. He said, “Yeah, go ahead”, he says. “I’m going to wait for the bus to come in”, I said. So I slept. I didn’t know how long I slept. I was tired. When I got up it was daylight all right.
I knew. I went to the bus depot and I asked that guy, “oh, it left already”, the bus. “The bus left already.” “You’ll have to wait until tomorrow”, he says. “There’s another one tomorrow.” I went and hid at the station because I knew they might be looking for me.
Anyway the next morning —
This was on a Tuesday —
Wednesday —
Thursday morning I didn’t sleep very much. I got up and waited for the bus. When I got to the bus depot, boy I was glad when that bus pulled in. I went and bought with whatever money I had there —
I said, “A ticket to The Pas”, I said. “You haven’t got enough”, he said. “Well, what about to Overflow (ph.)”, I said. “Yeah, he says, you’ve got enough for Overflow (ph.)”. “But we can’t drop you off any old place”, he says. “That’s okay. My uncle is working over there.” I lied about that a little. “I’ve got my uncle cutting cordwood over there.” I knew about this already. I used to see people going there from here. He looked at me for a while. “Oh, I’ll give you a ticket anyway.” Boy, I was glad when he gave me a ticket.
The reason why I didn’t have enough there was I had to sell my wallet to that janitor. I gave him my wallet and my jack knife so I had enough there for that fare to Overflow (ph.). I kept using a little bit to eat chips, eh, soft drinks and chips, and a chocolate bar. I wasn’t thinking about that fare. I thought it wouldn’t be that much.
Anyway, when I got to Overflow (ph.), that was the end of the line. It was Thursday night, at night. I was thinking already what to do. I had my ideas. I figured I was going to make a big fire in the bush and hitch hike from there all night. Sooner or later somebody would pick me up I figured.
When I got off in Overflow (ph.) at night there I was lucky. I seen my cousin. They were cutting cordwood. Sure enough I seen them. Boy, I got off the bus and I told them what happened. “I ran away from school”. “Pay my way to The Pas.” I guess they must have been drinking a little bit. They were laughing and feeling happy. They bought me a six-pack of mixed drinks, coke, orange, seven-up, chocolate bars and chips. “You go home now. We’ll buy you a ticket.” He knows my mother good, that guy there, eh. Relatives. Cousins. “Tell them we’ll be in on Saturday”, he says.
I says, “All right, I’ll tell them, and I’ll tell them to pay you.” So that’s how I got on the bus when that bus came. Thursday night I got here. And then my late mother and my late aunt went to see the Indian Agent at that time, that morning, Friday morning. He said, “When did you come in?”, he said. “First, before you say anything, I want to tell you why I ran away”, I said, “why I took off from there.” So I told him, eh, all the work we had to did, six in the morning and you know no recreation. There was an arena outside, an outdoor rink, but we never got to use it. All we done was work, work, work, all the time.
At first I used to smell just like cow manure. It went through your clothing and then when I went to the boiler room I didn’t have enough time. I did my homework in that boiler room, the last one in and the last one to get out. I made sure there was enough coal.
He said, “When did you leave?”, after I told him what happened in that school. You know what, you said you left Tuesday? I said, “Yeah, Tuesday at eight-thirty I left over there. It was snowing. But I used the railroad track”, I told him. I took the railroad about twenty miles and then got on the train and then by bus. “And it’s Friday morning”, he says. “Yeah.” “And no call from Birtle to tell him, my relatives or him, the Indian Agent that I was missing from that school already.”
No call for him or to tell anybody that I was not in that school already. That’s Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday; four days already went by without no notice telling anyone. So that’s one thing —
There were lots of other boys that tried that, you know, to Norway House and Nelson House. They used the highway to try to get away from that school. They ran away but they used to bring them back. They used the highway and they used to get caught right away and they used to bring them back. But me, I used the railroad track. I went south instead, to Minnedosa and then from Minnedosa I knew how to catch the bus there and go from there up north to The Pas here.
That’s one thing I always wondered. What happened if I would have froze? I would have been lost, I guess. But I worked hard. I was healthy. That’s how I made that trip, when I ran away.
Anyway, Dick Bell – that’s our Indian Agent – he said, “You’ll not go back to that Birtle, but I’ll wait for Portage or Brandon.” That’s when later on he sent me back to Brandon, about April. He sent me to Brandon. But Brandon was also full. It was full. But I stayed in a boarding house. That’s why I couldn’t put my —
Like it’s not a Residential School. It’s a boarding school. Later on after that I was advanced enough in my schooling to go Winnipeg. That’s also a boarding school, in Winnipeg.
That’s the one thing I wanted to share with you. Why didn’t they report my running away from there after that? I left there Tuesday at eight-thirty. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and then we went to see Dick Bell that morning at ten o’clock in the morning. No call yet from Birtle, that Residential School.
But I don’t mind telling you this. I want to tell this. I’ve been thinking about this. You think it might be a joke. But I told this guy already, that guy who has a video camera, I’m going to hire you to come with me. I’m a plumber now, eh. I said, “I’m going to hire you”, I told Sam Esther (ph.). He’s got all that video. “I’m going to take you with me to that school”, I told him. I got an extension ladder. I’m going to take that with me. When we go over there to see that school and take pictures of me here and there, eating, running away lots, and when I get to that school I will stop in Swan River Hostel, and we’ll go around that ways. It’s not far from Way-Way (ph.). It’s only half an hour ride from Way-Way (ph.), that Birtle School. Ask those people over there. I went there this winter. That building is still up, that school, that building, eh. That’s when I told Sam Esther later after I got back.
I went to watch the hockey game over there. That’s how I know. Bishops were playing over there and we wanted to watch the hockey game.
But anyway, I told Sam Esther (ph.) you want to take a picture of me. I eat lots on the way, lots of dessert in Way-Way (ph.). I’m going to eat a whole pie! (Laughter) And I’m going to climb up that ladder. I’m going to set up my ladder to climb that school, that building. I know what it looks like. I can never forget that. I will never forget the way it looks. I’m going to climb up on that school, I told you people, taking a picture of me with your video camera. I want to make sure I’ve got a roll of toilet paper with me. I’m going to throw it over the top of that building and I want you to take a picture. I want to take a picture of me making a big poop right on top of that school. (Laughter) That’s what I think of that school, I told him.
But you know, he laughed. It’s just a joke. It’s what I’m thinking, I said. That school was too much work. No recreation.
And over there, too, we weren’t allowed to speak Cree. If you spoke Cree there was no supper for you and they put you to do extra work, and at Birtle. Yeah. Every one of these Residential Schools, I don’t know why they didn’t want —
— End of Interview
Are you a Residential School Survivor?
Contact us to share your story
Marie Tashoots
Lower Post Residential School
Roy Dick
Lower Post Residential School
Matilda Mallett
Brandon Residential School
Evelyn Lariviere
Pine Creek Residential School and Assiniboia Residential School
Mabel Grey
St. Bernard’s Mission
Peggy Shannon Abraham
Alert Bay
Francis Bent
St. George’s Residential School
Tim Antoine
Lejac Indian Residential School
Ed Marten
Holy Angels Residential School
Terry Lusty
St. Joseph’s Residential School
Kappo Philomene
St. Francis Xavier
Janet Easter
McKay Residential School
Lucille Mattess
Lejac Indian Residential School
Rev. Mary Battaja
Choutla Residential School
Grant Severight
St. Philips Residential School
Velma Page Kuper Island Indian Residential School
Lorna Rope
St. Paul’s in Lebret, SK
Basil Ambers
St. Michael’s Indian Residential School
Mabel Harry Fontaine
Fort Alexander Indian Residential School
Carole Dawson St. Michael’s Indian Residential School
Walter West
Takla First Nation
Elsie Paul
Sechelt Indian Residential School
Joseph Desjarlais
Lapointe Hall, Breyant Hall
Melvin Jack Lower Point Residential School
Aggie George
Lejac Indian Residential School
Dennis George Green
Ermineskin Residential School
Rita Watcheston
Lebret
Ed Bitternose Gordon Indian Residential School
Eunice Gray
St. Andrew’s Anglican Mission
William McLean
Stone Residential School, Poundmakers Residential School
Beverly Albrecht
Mohawk Institute
Harry McGillivray Prince Albert Indian Residential School
Charles Scribe
Jack River School
Roy Nooski
Lejac Indian Residential School
Robert Tomah
Lejac Indian Residential School
Dillan Stonechild Qu’Appelle Indian Residential School
Suamel Ross
All Saints Indian Residential School
Arthur Fourstar
Birtle Indian Residential School
Richard Kistabish
St. Marc’s Indian Residential School
George Francis Shubenacadie Island Indian Residential School
Verna Miller
St. George’s Indian Residential School
Percy Ballantyne
Birtle Indian Residential School
Blanche Hill-Easton
Mohawk Institute
Brenda Bignell Arnault Mohawk Institute
Riley Burns
Gordons Residential School
Patricia Lewis
Shubenacadie Indian Residential School
Shirley Flowers
Yale School
Nazaire Azarie-Bird St. Michael’s Indian Residential School
Julia Marks
Christ King School
Jennifer Wood
Portage Indian Residential School
David Striped Wolf St. Mary’s Indian Residential School
Johnny Brass
Gordons Residential School
William George Lathlin
All Saints Indian Residential School
Mary Caesar
Lower Point Residential School
Alfred Solonas Lejac Indian Residential School
Darlene Laforme
Mohawk Institute
James Leon Sheldon
Lower Point Residential School
Cecil Ketlo
Lejac Indian Residential School