Patricia Lewis
Shubenacadie Indian Residential School
THE INTERVIEWER: Could you say and spell your name?
PATRICIA LEWIS: Patricia Lewis; P-a-t-r-i-c-i-a L-e-w-i-s.
Q. Okay. And where are you from?
A. Eskasoni First Nation.
Q. And what school did you attend?
A. I attended the Residential School in Shube, Shubenacadie. I attended Indian Day School one year in Eskasoni.
Q. What year was that?
A. I don’t really remember.
Q. Do you remember how old you were? That was a day school?
A. I think I was about eleven at that time.
Q. How old were you when you went to Shubenacadie?
A. I believe I was 6, going on 7. The year was 1957. I remember, because that summer, that fall actually, my older sisters Maureen, Shirley and Miranda, they prepared us. They said we were going to “Resi”. And we gotta cut your hair because they are going to cut it anyway. We all had to line up and they cut our hair, below our ears.
Q. Your sisters did that for you?
A. They did it before we went. We had been running around all that summer, you know, with our hair long all that time. So I remember we were more or less prepared to go.
Q. Did they prepare you any other way? Did they talk about what to expect?
A. Not that I can really recall. All I basically remember is the hair cut. That was most significant. But I think maybe Miranda might have told us something like if you’re bad they are going to beat you with a stick, or something like that.
Q. Do you remember your first day at school?
A. I remember when we were on our way. We took the train. I was pretty excited, I think, about going there. I was with my sisters and brothers and I knew a lot of them that were going there. It seemed like fun on the way there.
But we arrived there and I remember the first thing one of the Nuns there said when we were introduced. My older sisters there said, “This is my younger sister and younger brother.” How many of us?—One, two. No, there was just me, I think, at that time. Because I don’t think Marilyn and my other brother Russell went there then. It was me and Harriet and Annette. They had already known the other sisters there, the older one. But they didn’t really know Harriet, I think. No, they didn’t know me. I was the only one. I remember now. I was the only one. And the Nun says, “Oh, another one of you!” She says, “Oh, another one of you.”
My older sister there got defensive and said, “Yeah, there’s more of us at home, too.” The Nun was pretty disgusted, it seemed.
Q. How many brothers and sisters do you have?
A. Well, there were originally eleven girls and 5 boys in the family. But we’re down to I think it’s 3 brothers and ten girls now.
Q. Do you remember anything else about that first day?
A. Well, it was pretty bad I would say. We had to line up and they stripped us. They made us take off everything. We had to stand there and they powdered us with this white powder, you know. I didn’t know what it was but we were all white anyway. We were white all over, covered in this powder. I learned later that it was DET and that we were being de-liced. We never had bugs, you know. They made us take a bath and put us in these little uniform things. Everyone ended up having a number.
I don’t remember what my first number was at that time. But I remember the clothes we got, the clothes and shoes that we got, the Nuns told us we had to take care of these because these are all you’re going to get. And if you lose anything you’re going to get in trouble.
Q. So what about a typical day. What time did you have to wake up and what did you eat for breakfast and that sort of thing?
Can you take us through a typical day?
A. Oh, a typical day, for me was pretty bad in the beginning. The Sisters wake you up either with a bell or they clap their hands real loud. Get up! Get up! It’s 6:30. I would say it was 6:30 in the morning. We would have to be up. Everyone made their beds. I was too young to do any of that. But the first thing every day was —
I was a bed wetter, so I wet the bed every day. So every day, every morning I would wake up and I would get a beating. The first day I was there, the first night I was there I was warned. I remember I was warned. If you wet the bed they are going to punish you. Well, I can’t help that. I’m only a kid. But I wet the bed that first night and when I got up the next morning I didn’t get a beating. I was warned. But the second time I got a strapping. They used a big belt. For a little kid it was a big belt.
That was the start of a typical day for me, on a daily basis, the beatings. It was usually ten whacks with the belt on the butt. A lot of times I would be made to —
Before I even had breakfast, or I wouldn’t get breakfast because of it, or a late breakfast, but I would always have to bring my sheets down and hold them up in the air in the cafeteria.
Q. In front of all the other students?
A. In front of all the other kids, yeah. But I wasn’t the only one. So I didn’t feel too bad about it really. It was the beatings I think that were more hurtful than that.
So a typical day —
It varied for me. Being so young and all, being a bed wetter, sometimes I would have to wash the sheets myself in the tub down there after I took a bath, or before I even took a bath, and hang them out outside. I had to go out. It didn’t matter what type of weather it was. They had to go outside.
After the breakfast thing, holding them up in the air, and either I would get breakfast or I wouldn’t.
Q. What would they say when you guys had to hold those sheets up? What would they say to the rest of the students?
A. They would try to shame us. They shamed us, you know. Look at them. These are the bed wetters. These are the ones that wet their beds. And anyone here who wets their bed, this is what happens to them. This is what is going to happen to you if you wet your bed.
I remember one young boy there, Lester Sylliboy, he was one of them, too, on the boys side. I believe they beat him once with the strap, right there in the cafeteria in front of everyone.
Q. What about the food. What was it like?
A. To me the food wasn’t so bad. They had porridge in the morning. We got our porridge. We had bread. We had juice and milk, sometimes, juice and milk. The milk was supposed to go in the porridge. If they had oatmeal —
Sometimes they had Red River Cereal with all the different kinds of stuff in there, I think that came later. But it was usually Cream of Wheat or oatmeal. They always had lumps in it. They always had lumps in them.
Sundays were supposed to be special because I believe we got an egg, a boiled egg and toast then, and juice. But a lot of the girls and guys I guess they didn’t like the porridge because it had lumps in it. Me, I didn’t care. I was always one for eating anything and everything, you know.
Q. Did you get enough food?
A. I can’t say I starved. I went hungry a lot of times because of the punishments I went through, but I can’t say I starved. I know a lot of the girls —
You couldn’t leave anything on your plate and a lot of the girls, they didn’t like the lumps. Well, I didn’t care if I had lumps in my porridge or not. Give me your lumps. I’ll take your lumps. I ate their lumps so they wouldn’t get in trouble. Me, like I said, I didn’t care.
I look back on that. It was funny. I saved a lot of lives, I think, by eating their lumps. (Laughter)
Q. Taking their lumps.
A. Yeah, I took their lumps. And in a lot of ways, really.
Q. What about the education you received. Did you think it was a good education?
A. I learned a lot. I was smart to begin with so I picked up everything. I already knew how to read and write my name and count to a hundred. I knew all my colours, even before I went there.
I think I was in the kindergarten for a week, not even, and they put me in the first grade. I knew everything there and they put me in the second grade. They kept me in the second grade. So I went from zero to 2 in that first year, I believe.
Q. What grade did it go up to?
A. Eight at the time, Grade 8.
Q. And did anyone go beyond Grade 8? Was there a high school in the area?
A. Not there. Not there that I know of.
Q. Was that the end of it?
A. That was the end of it I believe for education. Grade 8 was it.
Q. So nobody went on after that to go to high school?
A. No. Grade 8 there and you were outta there. Or you just didn’t go back because of a parent wanting you back, or something going on or whatever. I don’t remember.
Q. What year did you finish there?
A. 1966. I was there until 1966.
Q. Are there any other experiences that you can share with us today about Residential School?
A. Well, we still didn’t finish the typical day for me. I was still in the morning.
Q. Okay. Let’s finish it.
A. After the punishment, after the sheets and all this, I would have to get ready just like the rest of them, you know, for school. We had the uniforms and we would stand in line and everyone would go to their class.
And then lunch.
Q. Did you have chores in the morning, too?
A. Well, after the breakfast thing, they would usually assign different ones to do different things. I don’t remember doing anything really the first year I was there. There couldn’t have been too much I was doing. But after I used to sweep the stairs down, wash the stairs down, from the third floor all the way down to the basement area. I did that.
I worked in the dorm, I think, one side of it. That’s doing all of the beds, under the beds, dusting and this and that. I worked in the Rec Room one other year, dusting everything, taking toys down, and that. Hallways, down the stairs, washing them, sweeping and dusting the banisters, everything.
I worked on the second floor one year and the stairs leading down, that led from the kitchen area. I used to do the Dining Room and dust the hallways. I think I worked upstairs another year. And in the chapel doing all the benches and polishing and sweeping and scrubbing.
Everything was done on your knees. A lot of stuff was done on your knees. I got bad knees now from that. I can’t be on my knees. Every time I get down on my knees for any reason whatsoever it hurts, you know.
Q. Were the Nuns your teachers?
A. Yeah. They were all our teachers. If they wanted to make a point, if they caught you doing something you’re not supposed to be doing, they had their wooden rulers and their little pointers and you would get rapped on the knuckles or rapped on the head, or poked in the chest or the throat, wherever they decided to poke you, or hit you.
There was a lot of abuse there, on a daily basis. A lot of the students, not just me, suffered a lot of physical abuse and emotional abuse.
Q. Can you talk about some of the emotional abuse?
A. Emotional was —
I remember Sister Gilberte (sp?) used to get really pissed off at us when somebody lost a handkerchief or a sock, you know. We had inspections for underwear, dirty underwear for that matter. “If your underwear is dirty you’re going to get punished.”
She called us savages an awful lot, and pagans. I never knew what that was. I never knew what a savage was and I never knew what a pagan was. I never put a lot of this stuff together until a lot later in life. That was around 1980 I started putting stuff together.
Q. Were you able to practice any of your own traditions at home before you went to Residential School in the early years?
A. Well myself personally I wasn’t born on the Reserve. I was born in Toronto. My mother and father were in Toronto and my mother left a few of us here and there along the way, so I was one of the ones that was born away from the Reserve. I ended up getting left there, for whatever reason, I don’t understand, but I know she had to come home to get the other kids. She left me in the care of someone. I believe they didn’t want to give me back. She had a hard time getting me back. Finally when she did get me back I was only able to be home for about a year before I got sent to the Residential School. I think it had a lot to do with the Indian Agent at the time. Big families, you know, single parents, struggling. They didn’t help much with that.
I believe my mother thought she was doing the best thing for us at the time.
Q. Did you speak your own traditional language at home?
A. Not at first. But the year I was there I picked up a lot. I was a quick learner.
Q. When you were at the school?
A. Not at the school, at home, on the Reserve.
I remember them saying, too, when we first got there, “anyone caught speaking that Mi’kmaq language, that savage pagan language – that’s what it was, that pagan language – will be punished.
They had quite a few rules. I don’t really remember them all now. But I probably would if I thought about it. I would remember more.
So we’re in school during the day and then you get lunch. It was short. Recesses. No, I don’t think we really had recesses. School went from 9 to 3. We had lunch and then we had recreation after, from 3 o’clock to 5 o’clock. Five o’clock was supper time. It was pretty regimental. So a typical day starts by getting up at 6 or 6:30 and you do your —
Anyone who is going to get punished is going to get punished then. Everybody else make your bed. Go downstairs. Wash up. Brush your teeth, wash your face and hands, comb your hair, blah, blah, blah. Stand in line. Wait for the bell, for the Nun to bring you into the cafeteria and everyone take their place. Everyone was assigned a place. Same thing at lunch time.
The classroom. Go downstairs. Wash up. Stand in line.
Q. A lot of standing in line?
A. A lot of standing in line, yeah, a lot of standing in line.
Q. So what was a typical lunch?
A. They had a lot of soup and stews. They had a farm down below so they grew their own vegetables.
Q. Would the children work on the farm?
A. Not usually the little ones. I know one of my older brothers, he worked there on the farm. I think 2 of my brothers worked there. And as my other brothers got older, they worked there until they left, until they were old enough to leave on their own.
Q. Did you ever get to see your brothers when you were at school?
A. Sometimes. We would be outside. We were all separated, you know, boys’ side and girls’ side. Sometimes I would get to see my brother. We would sneak around the back. You had to sneak around an awful lot and not get caught. Some of the Nuns were quite vigilant. They had their places where they could spy, but we knew all their places where they spied and we could look up in certain areas sometimes and know that they were there. We would sneak around. There were ways.
Q. What about the evenings, after dinner, how would you spend your evenings?
A. It wasn’t just me. Evenings I can’t recall myself too many evenings, how I spent my evenings. How I spent my evenings was being punished for anything. It was morning, afternoon and evenings. I was isolated an awful lot there, I feel, anyway, that I was isolated an awful lot because I was a constant bed wetter. I got punished for losing a sock or a handkerchief, or having dirty underwear.
Q. So that sort of punishment went on daily?
A. For me, yeah. So I would be made to stand in the corner for a couple of hours, until supper time. I didn’t spend too much time outside. But every time we were outside it didn’t matter. I think everyone was thrown out every day, rain or shine, snow, blizzard, it didn’t matter. I guess they thought fresh air was good for you. It didn’t matter if it was rainy, or what kind of weather it was. The fresh air was good for you.
But you didn’t see them out there! You didn’t really see them out there all the time.
Q. Are there any certain experiences that sort of stand out for you that you would like to share with us?
A. There’s a lot, really, that kind of stand out. Seeing others punished —
The beatings were pretty bad. They were pretty bad. These girls would be screaming, not only me, but I would see some of the younger ones and they would have this big ruler. You don’t even have anything here that compares to what —
I can’t see anything here that compares to what they had. Everything was big. To me it was big because I was so small. I was a scrawny little thing. To see little ones jumping around, trying to avoid it. You can’t avoid it, you know. It’s like doing a little dance. They whacked hard. That particular one, Sister Gilberte (sp?) was really good at it. She never missed, barely.
Q. Do you remember having bruises?
A. Always bruises. Always sore butt. Sore knuckles. Sore head. My ears would be sore from her pulling them. I’ve seen her lifting girls right off the floor holding them by their ears. I’ve seen her lifting them up with both hands around their necks. She used her fists an awful lot, too. She used her fists. If she had anything in her hand —
It would hurt her if she used her fists, you know, so she usually tried to have something in her hand all the time. She was the meanest one there. There were other means ones, but she was the one that haunts me even still, to this day.
Q. What was the worst thing she ever did to you?
A. She tried to drown me, I guess. I remember one of my bed wetting sessions, she dragged me downstairs by my ear. She was sick of it. She was going to do something about it. She dragged me all the way downstairs by my ear. She turned the hot water on in that tub and stripped me and put me in there. And of course all the others were following down because it was the morning routine. You have to go down anyway, and brush your teeth, wash your face and hands, comb your hair and get ready for breakfast. So the others weren’t too far behind.
She was quick. By the time they got down I was already in the tub. I was thrashing around and I was turning all red. She put me under. I remember choking thinking I’m going to die and nobody is going to help me. Nobody helped me before. Right? And I went down again. She pulled me up in time. But it was hot and I was already all red. I was red all over and she was hollering and screaming “I’m sick and tired of you wetting the bed.” “Why do you keep wetting the bed?” “There’s nothing wrong with you.” “God is going to punish you.” “You’re nothing but a little savage.” “That’s why you are wetting the bed because you’re just one of those little savages, blah, blah, blah.”
She’s going on and on and on. Of course I was screaming and hollering and crying, struggling because I couldn’t really defend myself. I was in a helpless situation and in a helpless position. I remember going down again. I don’t know if it was for the third time, but I didn’t think I was coming up.
Q. Really?
A. I didn’t think I was coming up. I believe one of the other Nuns grabbed her. I know I got pulled out. I don’t know if it was one of the other Nuns, or a Nun and a couple of the older girls there that rescued me from her. But I believe I would have died if there had not been that intervention that time.
I seen it happen to a few other girls.
It’s kind of hard to understand how they could be so cruel like that. There were a select few that really got it pretty bad. I know I was one of them. But there were a few others that got more or less the same treatment.
The same thing happened to me again when I was older, but she used cold water. I struggled this time. I was a lot bigger and a lot older.
Q. Did she try to hold you under the water again?
A. Yeah. But I was bigger then. I was bigger then so she couldn’t do what she did to me the first time. I had to be saved the first time. The second time I was a little older and I saved myself. I think maybe the Creator saved me, too. I think that had a lot to do with that.
Q. She would do this to other children as well?
A. Yeah, on occasion, when her temper flared, when she had reached her limit of what she could tolerate, or when she was just in the mood apparently. I don’t know.
Q. What about going home in the summer. What was that like? Did you miss your family and was it hard to go back every year to school?
A. It was hard to go back home even. Some years I didn’t get to go because, well, I think my mother wasn’t around. I think my mother had gone somewhere. I think the first year I went home. The following year I might have gone home, but the year after that I think I had to stay and every year after that, either I stayed or my aunt took me in. I stayed with my cousins, me and some of my younger sisters, and some of my older sisters would stay with my aunt.
They call her “Doctor Granny” now, but I think the most that were in the house, in her small house, were like twenty-seven of us one year, because it was my sisters and brothers and her kids.
Q. What was it like staying at the school for the summer?
A. Same-old-same-old. It was the same. It was drudgery. It was the same. It was just the same. I still got the punishments.
Q. Did you go to school as well? Were there classes?
A. No. Some of my sisters and brothers would get to go here and there. I don’t know if they went to the —
Some family would take them in, you know, but they would come back saying they hated it because they were slaves. They were treated just as bad where they were as they would have been if they had stayed. I can’t say anything —
I can’t remember any good times when I stayed, really. I can’t really remember any good times because I was still a bed wetter and I was still getting punished. I had more chores to do because there were less people there.
Q. So you spent most of the day doing chores?
A. I spent a lot of the days doing chores. I don’t remember too much having fun kind of stuff. I had a few best friends there, but I can’t remember too many of the good things we did.
I remember I was able to go swinging a few times, on the swings. We used to push each other on the swings, and then when they get high we’d duck under, take a chance and duck under. I remember one time I didn’t duck in time and I got hit and thrown in the air and flew against a tree, a little fir tree that was there broke my fall. Otherwise I probably would have landed further back. I’ve still got a scar. I ended up with 6 stitches.
I remember the Nun coming out. I’m there bleeding and everything, and she came over. The girls were trying to take me inside. “Oh, she’s going to punish me, she’s going to punish me, she’s always punishing me.” I didn’t want her to see me like that. But there was blood everywhere. I couldn’t hide it. I got it all over my shirt. “Oh, she’s going to beat me.” I’m there crying, you know.
She came out. She looked at me and gave me a few knocks on the head and grabbed me by the ear. “Look at what you’re doing.” “Gawd”, she said, “you’re nothing but a bunch of savages, all of you.” Now I gotta take her to the doctor. So I had to go get stitches. She was very pissed off about it, you know, no sympathy.
Q. No hugs ever?
A. Never any hugs, no, never any hugs. Never any comforting from her, in particular, anyway.
I think the only Nun that ever comforted me and hugged me and made me feel good, and I loved her, and a lot of the students loved her, was Sister Agnes Marie. She was our fourth and fifth grade teacher. She had the fourth and fifth grade one year. We all loved her a whole lot. We really really loved her. She was just like a saint.
They got rid of her. They let her go. They let her go.
Q. Do you know why?
A. Because she tried to stick up for us, I believe. She tried to stick up for us. They wouldn’t have none of it.
Q. I want to talk a little bit about your healing, but before we move on are there any final things you would like to say about your experiences?
A. Well, there’s so much more to say for that matter.
It was a bad thing, a wrong thing. How could people —
I talked to a friend of mine last night. We were outside talking and he asked me how I got through all of this. How did you start healing? I says, “It took a long time.” All those years I put these people up on a pedestal. They were next to God. No matter what they said or did, it was like God spoke. They were up there with God. Nobody could believe that they could ever do any wrong, I felt.
I used to get high, you know. I used to get high all the time. It was during one of these highs, I call it a spiritual experience when I get high, it was nothing religious about it, nothing religious about getting high. It was just being able to be somewhere else.
Well, one of these times I was somewhere else and it’s almost like a voice spoke to me and says, “They’re only human, they’re only human”.
— Speaker overcome with emotion
I think that was when I started healing. They were human beings and I could take them down and put myself in their place.
Q. Are you involved in any healing programs now?
A. Yeah, my own, basically. I attend Gatherings and things like that.
Q. How about doing your art?
A. Oh, I do that a lot, too. I always wanted to be a savage and a pagan and an Indian, and I was. Part of that was the beadwork, the baskets, the language, you know. I never really learned how to speak the language, but I know how to do the beadwork, the crafts and that. I loved the language, the music.
Q. Do you find healing in that, doing the beadwork?
A. Oh yeah. It takes me back to the good things. It does. It’s a part of the spirit that they can never take away. Someone even said somewhere that I read, as long as there’s one bead, one rock, one stone, one feather in this world, there will always be an Indian. They can never take that away.
Q. Thank you for coming today and sharing with us. You did a great job. Thanks.
A. Okay.
Q. We’re done. Are you okay?
A. Yeah. But like I said, there’s a lot more to say.
Q. Our hour is up now. But if there is more you want to say, we have the audio as well, and they are not booked up. We have someone else coming right away for a video, but you’re welcome to do an audio.
A. I can do them both. I think so.
Q. Yes, do the audio. Lots of people come here and then they realize they should have said this or talked about that, so that’s another opportunity for you if you want to sign up for the audio.
— End of Interview.
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