Margaret Ward

My name is Margaret Ward. I’m from Mi’kmaq Nation. Basically its everybody’s story that was in the Residential School… like, I want to mention my Mother, and you know, and the other students, and myself, I was there too. I think its important because people, like other people from outside communities… even some families… they don’t know. It’s for people who don’t know what happened in these schools… and I have an example, that the school that I attended was in Nova Scotia and it was called Shubie [Shubenacadie Indian Residential School] and just a road, just like a road down the hill to get to the highway, there were people living there too… and when this issue started coming out in 1994, some people had told us, that those people – and I forget their last names, but they were sort of like the care-takers, coming up to the school – they were non-natives, going up to the school, and they would clean, and you know do their job and they’re gone home again… so when they heard about what was going on in that school, they were appalled… like, they said ‘That school has been there for like, thirty-forty years, and we never knew anything…’ Like for people that close by, to the school, we were just up the hill, and they weren’t aware of anything that went on there so, if they didn’t know… how many people across Canada don’t know either? And, I just hope that we can get that message out to everyone and make sure it doesn’t happen again.
A little bit of everything I guess… It’s survival, you know there’s still… we’re still here, I’m still here, other people have passed on… and… its not necessarily death, but I sort of death is in there too. The schools from what I have read in other books, or hear from other Survivors, that were, you know, we all shared stories… missing children, yes… that’s fairly out there now… and unmarked burials, and that’s for sure out west its bad in that area I guess, there’s about 10,000 kids that were missing and there was no burials – I mean there was no marked burials.
What year does this take story place?
This story that I’m recording… it was, my Mother went there in 1935 and she stayed there for the whole 16-17 years… and, I was there in 1963 and 64.’ The Residential School is in, it’s called Shubenacadie Residential School and, its located in Nova Scotia. Yea, when you tell your story, you have to sort of, think about… maybe what other students did to you, and what happened to you, what causes you to be sometimes scared, fearful, because of what happened. It involves some students but I’m not comfortable in maybe saying their names… and yes, there was one student that was involved in my… towards me, with abuse, mostly, bullying, she was really nasty… and I don’t know if she did that to other students but she was known as a bully… and I was ten years old – eleven years old – and every time we went out for, like a recess, or if we went to, playing, you know, outside… she would come over to me and she would say, ‘Oh my god, you’re so ugly. Why are you so ugly?’ and at eleven years old I had never been asked that question. I didn’t know what to say because I was scared, I was really scared and she make me nervous… and she pulled my ears she would pull my hair, pinch my cheeks like really hard, eh? It just brought a lot of fear with everybody else after. When I went to another school I was always scared that there’s going to be another one like that. She was really… not a very good person, you know? I didn’t know anything about, anything like that, because I was in a very protective environment at home so when I went to this school and then came across this certain student – a girl – I sort of just… I still think about it. I still dream about her and even though she passed on, it’s sort of still there. Some of the students were involved and they would… some of them would tell her ‘No’, you know, ‘Don’t say that’ Don’t do that,’ and there were some nice girls there, like you know, I got along with them, and she got along with me, and there were other students who were similar to her – the ones whose abusive – but not as bad as this one was, like, you know… and I never want to mention her name for fear, you know, even though she’s passed on, her family and… its sort of left an imprint in there somewhere, yea.
Yes, I attended a Residential School the Shubenacadie Residential School and I was there for 1963 and 64. And then I was sent home. Yes, I only attended the one Residential School the ones that I speak of is Shubenacadie. I’m hear to share about when my Mom was there, the stories that I have heard from her, and myself when I was there and the stories that I heard from other kids, like students that were there… and that’s what I am here for. Because I feel, even still today, that we’ve been talking about Residential Schools since… one lady took it upon herself to open up the whole issue of Residential School in 1993 and 1994. And I feel that we should, people should have more knowledge, more awareness… and encourage other Survivors to be able to tell their stories.
So, anyways, I know my – well I didn’t know then, because I wasn’t even here – my Mom was a Residential School Survivor and her two sisters and they all stayed there the whole ten, eleven, twelve years, because their Mother died when my Mom was about three years old. And she always told me the story about that and her husband, her father, sorry, was not, he couldn’t handle three little girls and so there was a lady in P.E.I. that sort of brought them up until she was about age four and then they couldn’t – she couldn’t do it anymore. So they decided, the Agent must have decided, that it was time for the girls to go the Residential School… and she was only about five, I think, when she went… and she told me that she didn’t, one of her sisters was not old enough, so anyways, they, I think, she was about six or seven when they all connected, the three girls, but they didn’t even know each other, you know… and she said that she didn’t mind the school, it just, when it came to learning she had a hard time with spelling or math and all the other stuff just that they took and the nuns were very angry with her… when she would fail the test. She said every time I got my test back, it was a big huge ‘X’ on my paper, and she said I just felt so bad because I thought I was doing good, but apparently I wasn’t… and then to punish her, they would send her down to the barn – there’s a barn, about, not even a mile from the Residential School – there was a barn there, they kept cows in there, chickens and I don’t know horses. But her job was to clean the cows and she had to do a perfect job and get a brush and brush them off and wash their, you know, the breast areas, and I don’t know what you call it or what else you call it, but anyways, that was her job… To clean the barn as a punishment and she spent, she did that for so long… that she sort of got comfortable in there. She didn’t want to go up the hill to go to, you know, class, so they didn’t care, you know if she was there or not. And she said I just felt comfortable being with the cows and she had a name for all of them and she kept them clean and she kept the floors swept and all that others tuff and sort of think today that she just, it was her escape, from what she knew… what she knew what was going on at the school.
So anyways, she left the school in… she was seventeen – I say seventeen, I’m not sure if she was eighteen? – but anyways she left the school, she went to another reserve where her sisters were and at that time, the people, in Indian ground anyway and (???) I think, especially the New Brunswick reserves they all went up to Maine to pick blueberries and that’s where she met my Father. She didn’t know no English, she spoke Indian when she started… like when she was three or four, she was picking up her Mi’kmaq language and then she completely, when she came out of the school, she didn’t know any Mi’kmaq at all. So anyways she happens to meet my Dad in Maine… and my father, he couldn’t speak English. He only spoke Mi’kmaq… and so anyways they became friends and he taught her, and she taught him some English words… and that’s how she sort of gained her language back, through my father. So anyways, as years went by, I was born in 1951 and I was a twin, but she died at an early age and so I went Indian day school when I was six and seven… eight… nine… and I think ten. They sent me to town school and she took me there to town… and that was another drama to me, it was… I never seen so many kids, like the school in Marashee was about three or four hundred kids there and it was really hard on me.
So anyway when I turned eleven they decided to go back to Maine to pick berries and this time they were going to take all of us there… was me and I think there was about six or seven siblings by then, by the time I was eleven, and they decided to go back to Maine pick berries and then when they got done picking berries a friend of theirs told them, well lets go picking potatoes the potato fields and work for a farmer and I was there for six weeks I believe according to my calculation and then my Mom decided she as going to bring us back, I think there was six of us then and it was too hard to try to manage whatever little money they made over there and so they brought us back home and she told me you can go back to school here in Harkins and she didn’t know there was a process when you go back, even when its late, it was about four weeks into September so anyways I went back to school that one time and I went in and I looked for my classmates and the teacher that I thought supposed to tell me where I’m supposed to go for grade five – no grade six – and she said you got to go to the Principal and tell them you’re back because right now there’s no room. So anyways I went down to the Principal and he said the same thing, ‘There’s no room for you here now, I don’t know what we can do.’ So I just left and went back home and told my Mom what they were saying and she said ‘Well, I’ll have to make a few phone calls…’ So she went to see the Chief and see if I could go to some sort of classes or something, but back then, in 1956 or 57, there was not too much of any other things for the kids.
So anyways one day she came home and she said ‘Margaret I got you a new dress and a new sweater’ and I think it was shoes, and she says ‘You’re gonna go to school’ and I said ‘Oh wow, that’s cool’ you know. I was happy but she said ‘Somebody’s gonna pick you up’ I said ‘oh…’ so being ten years old, eleven, you don’t think of, the future, like what’s going to happen. So anyway, I was looking out the window upstairs in my room, they were watching for a blue car to come down and pick me up and when I went to when the car came it was an Indian agent and I didn’t know who he was you know I wasn’t aware of all that stuff there, eh? And I got into the car and there was three other kids that were in the same situation I think, so there was three of them and so we drove and I don’t even remember getting on the train I just… you know, middle of the day still and so I didn’t think about anything and I got on the train with them and I remember sitting with them and even it was a long train ride – of course it takes about seven hours, I know that now – and anyways we got off the train, we got on another car, and we drove up to this school and… when I seen the school I didn’t know… it was like, it was almost about ten, eleven o’clock at night, it was dark! and I told my friend, ‘its too dark we cant go to school’ and she said, ‘Well we have to go in, you gotta go in’ so anyway they drove right up to the school, right to the front there and all I could see the huge doors and I think there’s about three nuns standing there and I think it was a priest because I could see the cross and I never ever seen a nun, ever before, like to me they were like spooky and I just kept staring… I told my friend, ‘Who are these people?’ you know, why are they here, you know, and she ‘No, no… never mind just come on, you got to go with us and follow us in’ so I remember going up the steps and I was really scared and not knowing, you know, ahead and went into the building and I didn’t understand what they were saying. Anyways, so we went in the school and the nuns were walking around and like I said they were they just seemed like – now a days it would, I don’t know, some costumes or something – I never seen them before and she offered us a lunch and I think it was just crackers and hot chocolate and I remember almost puking when I drank the hot chocolate because I don’t know what was in there but it was not… it was not… it almost made me sick just to almost, and I swallowed it anyways because I was scared of the nuns – I didn’t want to do anything, right first time, anything unusual. Anyways, so they sent us to go to bed now, they took us up I don’t know how many flights of stairs there was, four or five flights I think, I remember walking ingot the dormitory and I seen a whole pink and blue beds ironed, you know like ironed beds and I just I didn’t know… I couldn’t figure out why… am I here am I going to bed here? Like you know.
So after a while the friend that I was asking all these questions from the time we got there she sort of stayed away from me for a while because I was too, I don’t know if I was too scared, and I was leaning on her to give me answers and I think we got up in the morning, we went to church, then we went down to the cafeteria and had breakfast and… went to… that first day, yea right away, I had to – that sister one of the sisters came and she said ‘Margaret you have a job…’ a job? She said, ‘Yea you’re gonna do the stairs’ and I didn’t know what to do, like I never did anything like that you know? So anyways she just gave me like two flights for the first couple of days and I didn’t know like what do you do? So I started just started to mop, you know and went back into the rec room where the recreation room where the other girls were and from there, that day, we went to class again, and then I started looking for my friend and I found her and said when are we going home? We’ve been here long enough’ and she said, ‘oh I’m going to go ask’ but she never, she was just telling me. I know that today, you know, she didn’t, it was too hard on her for me to ask so many questions also, and she stayed away from me and I didn’t realize that it was Shubie that my Mom had talked about to my father I used to hear them talking in the kitchen when I was doing my homework and she would tell my father what they did to her and how the slapped her around and you know, called her names, ‘You’re never going home again…’ and stuff like that and I’m thinking, oh my… I’m sitting there at the table just picking this up here and there, eh? So when I was in school, the class, the nun she said ‘You guys are going to write a letter to…’ and I’m in day 5 … she says, ‘You gonna write a letter home.’ And I was all happy about that. She said you have to spell Shubenacadie Residential School and as I was spelling it, as I was spelling it… that’s when I realized, when she kept saying, ‘Spell Shubenacadie… spell Shubenacadie…’ and I was spelling it… and that’s when I realized I was in Shubie… and, I been thinking about it, and thinking about I not wanting to say anything and… I started thinking, I think at night, and I’m thinking, you know thinking, ‘This is Shubie… This what they were talking about. Why would she send me here when she said it was so bad? Am I going to get the same punishment?’
And so, I just put it in the back… in my back of my mind… as a kid you just go with the flow after a while, eh? And it was … an eye opener I know that… but I didn’t realize all that stuff going on as part of, that each day, I didn’t realize it was abuse then. Because I had never been abused like that before and there was other little girls that I seen there – they must have been in grade two or one – and somebody came running down from the dormitory and said one of the girls they peed the bed, and they were making noise, and they were jumping on the beds and the nun had to come down. So anyways, I seen them, and I knew one of them was from my reserve, and I said oh my god what’s going to happen… but anyways, its in the recreation room, and the showers, yea the showers lead to on one side and the nun opened the door and they all went in there… there was about six of them I think, six little girls, like they couldn’t of been no more… than five? Anyways I heard the straps, I heard the strapping, I heard her yelling at them and it just… I couldn’t… I kept… I talked to one of the girls that was there… and she said, ‘No. She’s not strapping them…’ so this day I still don’t know if they got strapped or not, on the butt, that’s what they were telling me… but the girl told me yep they got strapped but it was so loud… you’re just standing there listening and you’re in the rec room and you can hear everything that’s going on in the shower there’s sinks in there and everything and I said oh my god I’m never going to do anything, you know, as a child, I don’t know, you sort of try to find a place where you can hide.. yea… so you wouldn’t have to be blamed for anything… it was 62’ to 64’ and the reason why, was because 63’ was in August, that was the blueberry picking time, and the September was the potato picking time until October. So when I went there… yea, I went there 63’ that fall and I came out 64’ in June. It was… the girls were fighting amongst themselves a lot… the older girls, they would scream and fight, and they had these shelves whatever there were – there were shelves on top where the games were, you know, just puzzles and whatever right? – anyway, but in, the side of the shelf, and in against the wall (there was about that much room left in there) and I would go hiding in there until it was quiet. That’s how I knew that was my spot. I knew, just like Mom, she wanted to get away from all that in there and even though she didn’t get no education, they didn’t care… but at least I did pass my grade five, that year there… but it was with, you know…
The memories didn’t start coming out until after I started coming out to meetings and stuff. You sort of try to put it away somewhere in your mind and you just go on with your life and then when Nora started the conversation thing, suing the government… my Mom was with – my Mom and my Aunt joined her -and there was about 900 hundred Survivors there that came out, yea. So when you start talking about those things, it was unreal. For me it was unreal I couldn’t stop crying. I couldn’t stop crying… every movie they showed it was, you know, every student or every person that had to tell their story, I could relate it and I could see it… and there I go again, like you know, I said whenever am I ever going to get through this… but you don’t think about that, like I said, you go with the flow… and sometimes you dread going to those meetings, you dread to hear those stories, you dread to see those movies they had… but for Mom and Sarah I had to go, you know, and I’m glad I did today. At least today I can sit here and I can talk – sometimes it still touches me inside, but you get to, you know, move on. I don’t really know if anything was done. I know one kid broke her leg and I know they took her to the hospital and took her back but she was… she was on the couch for the whole time. Like she couldn’t walk, I think she broke her femur or something, and that’s all she was, she was on the couch the whole time and sometimes she would ask me ‘Margaret can you come, can you go and get me some water?’ you know, or ‘Get me a crayon…’ she was only a young girl – way younger than me then – and I don’t believe anything was done, you know, for…
I often heard about, when we used to go for walks. No matter how cold it was, we went… and I would walk with one of these girls there and she would point out different spots. She said ‘You see that lake there?’ and I say, ‘Yea.’ ‘Well there’s two girls drowned in there…’ and I said, ‘Are they still in there?’ she said ‘Yea nobody took them out…’ Oh. I just… you know you keep picturing in your mind… Why are they there? Why isn’t nobody doing anything? Even as a kid, and even throughout the years, I still think about that. Yea. Its… it was never done… and there as other stories too that I.… its so gruesome… its so inhuman… To me, the story I would say now… How could anyone do something like that to a baby? I heard there were girl there that had a baby and one of the girls… and one of the girls said, ‘I saw it, I saw…’ She would tell her friends too, ‘I saw it! I know what they did!’ and… Oh my heart…. Oh I don’t want to do this anymore… [break]
And you know when I seen that movie, Indian Horse? Exactly it. Oh my god that baby…. no, I think that was it. But I just want to make sure that they, the people that take care of, sort of look over the Survivors, to keep doing it, you know, you never know when there’s somebody out there that may need help even though they say, ‘No, I’m done…’ you know, there’s so much pain, you know, the kids endured so much pain… and I did, I did a survey in my community… about ten years ago now, and my job was to go out and talk to the Survivors and ask them if they wanted to fill a survey of questions. It was on like a book, I wasn’t happy with it anyway, but I went and first you have to get them to sign, and some of the Survivors – the Elders anyway – ‘Nope. Don’t want it here. They don’t need to hear my story, and I’m not sharing…’ and what can you do? You can’t do nothing, you know, ‘Its okay, I’m just hear to see if we can help some Survivors…’ you know and there’s some that were willing, and some just, you know, no way.
To the Canadian government you don’t know what you’ve done to my people, to my children, my grandchildren… they don’t know the stories they hear it from other words, they don’t know the real stories, and I didn’t want to be the one to tell them and last year, when we had these orange shirt day, one of my kids came over and said I didn’t know all that happened. I said oh I didn’t want to tell you babe until you were ready until I felt you were ready, you can take it, but I still don’t tell them the whole thing, I sort of sugar coat it a little, try to, so I blame the government, the Indian Agents, the RCMP… No matter how often they can apologize, I don’t care about apologies. I just want them to know about what they did so this come out from everywhere across Canada…
Like, I don’t know how we are going to go about it. We’ve already done about twenty years of this, and I can’t, that this is still there… and I thought I was done like you know, I don’t have to deal with that anymore I don’t have to look there anymore… but like that movie I was telling about, it did, it did bring back some. One part of it anyway, but I… I just went to the bathroom and stayed there for a while. Marlene said, ‘Oh, you took a long time…’ I said, ‘I know…’ Just brush it off like that, you know… but the pain, it’s always there. The memory will always be there we can’t erase those so that’s what I say, Canada does not know what they have done and not only Canada – it’s in Australia and it’s in the States… and I mean, the first school that started was in Quebec in 1860. Can you imagine what they did? No wonder they call us, “Stupid Indians.” We’re no different than they are – it’s just that we went to hell.
We went to hell… and I know my relatives that were there, they went into, they became alcoholics, some of them, some of them became suicidal… and that’s scary. I kept everything here because I was always scared that my kids might overthink and maybe do something and that’s… I would just like to, tell the government or Canada or the prime minister, or whatever. I know Prime Minister Harper tried to apologize, I even felt sorry for him because he doesn’t realize what he did. He doesn’t realize what this government did all the way back, gods know when. So how do you fix that? How do you heal that, you know? It’s a sad chapter for Survivors. Some of the Survivors were… how do I put it… they were like pets to the nuns, yea… and those are the ones that can… they probably seen what was going on there, but they never say anything. I always wondered about that… and they don’t say anything because they were sort of favoured – favourites – and to this day, they don’t say nothing… and I know some of them… so yea… but we all went through the same thing. No matter if its in Quebec, the States, Shubie… it basically made me… maybe we weren’t that bad, maybe there was other Residential Schools that were worse… I’ve heard of some. They need help, we need to be out there, you know, educate the society. Educate the kids so this never happens again… that’s all I ask. Never let this happen again, never. You know? I was talking to my grandson one day – because he wanted to know about the t-shirt thing – and I said well there was bad things that happened with this, you know, but the purpose of these t-shirts is to let everybody know what happened in these schools. I said you’ll hear about it… but I want you to promise me that you’ll make sure that doesn’t happen again and if you know, you go… you go and say, ‘No. No more of that…’ but I don’t want to hold him up to that… poor soul, such a big duty.