L'INTERVIEWEUR: Velma, je dois d'abord que votre nom soit épelé pour moi, alors pouvez-vous me dire votre nom et l'épeler, s'il vous plaît.
PAGE VELMA: Page Velma; Velma Page.
Q. Merci beaucoup.
R. Mon nom de jeune fille était Bob.
Q. Cob?
A. Bob; Bob.
Q. That’s why Dave mentioned you were cousins. Right?
R. Oui.
Q. Et d'où venez-vous?
A. De la Première Nation Nanoose.
Q. Est-ce que c'est là que vous avez toujours vécu?
R. Autant que je me souvienne, ils m'ont dit que j'habitais à Comox, en Colombie-Britannique et à Deep Bay, en Colombie-Britannique, ces deux endroits.
Q. Quand vous étiez enfant?
R. Oui, avant la mort de ma mère en 1950. Mais après 1950, j'ai vécu à Nanoose jusqu'à ce que je parte et que je me rende à Duncan, en Colombie-Britannique.
Q. Quand êtes-vous allé à Duncan?
A. In 1956, I think it was. I think it was in ’56.
Q. Quel âge aviez-vous alors?
R. Quinze.
Q. Est-ce à ce moment-là que vous êtes allé au pensionnat?
A. No. I went to Residential School in 1950. I thought I went there two years but I looked at my paper and they said I went in 1948-49, besides 1950-52. I don’t remember being there in 1948-49. But I remember being there in 1950, 1951 and 1952, after my mom died. It’s like I just started remembering everything after she died.
Q. Quand est-elle morte?
A. En 1950.
Q. Et vous aviez quel âge?
A. Huit.
Q. Huit. Vous êtes donc allé au pensionnat en 1950?
R. Oui.
Q. Vous rappelez-vous comment était la vie avant de vous rendre au pensionnat?
— Speaker overcome with emotion
A. It was just being on the Reserve all the time, seeing my mom around, though I don’t remember her ever talking to me or hugging me.
I remember being happy there or feeling safe on the Reserve before she died. Everything changed when she died and they put me in Residential. I didn’t know she was dead. They didn’t tell me she was dead when they called us out of the bedroom to tell us to look at her in the coffin. I didn’t know it was a coffin and I didn’t know she was dead. They didn’t tell me where they took her.
Q. Lorsque vous étiez au pensionnat, ils vous ont emmené vous montrer?
A. No. In March of that year, 1950, when she died. It was in September I went to Kuper Island Residential. But all my young years I didn’t know where she was. I didn’t know she was dead.
Q. Aviez-vous des frères ou sœurs avec vous?
A. Six of my older siblings were in Residential in Kuper Island. I didn’t know that they were. I didn’t know I had brothers and sisters because they were there all the time, I guess. My one remaining older sister who lives in Duncan said that she went there for nine years. She was sixteen when my mom died. There were four of us younger ones at home; two younger brothers and a sister. They sent my younger sister and I there. But when I looked back, just this last year, I don’t remember seeing my younger sister there. I think they must have sent her home because I don’t remember seeing her in the school, though we got on the train together and went across on the little ferry to Kuper Island from Chemainus. I don’t remember seeing her there.
And that older sister that is deceased now, she went with us that first year. I don’t remember seeing her there either.
Q. Comment était-ce pour vous lorsque vous êtes arrivé là-bas?
A. Right from the beginning I was scared walking down that dock in Chemainus to get on that boat. I didn’t know where they were bringing me. A Priest or a man picked us up and walked us down there from the train. Going on that ferry on the water for the first time – it was the first time I had been on a boat – and walking up that dock to school, I didn’t know why I was there.
Q. Est-ce que quelqu'un vous l'a expliqué?
R. Non.
Q. Est-ce que quelqu'un que vous connaissiez vous attendait à l'école?
A. No. And I didn’t see my dad before I left, either. I don’t know if he was around when I left. I don’t remember leaving my house. I just remember being at the train station and getting on that train in Nanaimo. But I don’t remember leaving my home in Nanoose.
Q. Après votre arrivée au pensionnat, pouvez-vous décrire ce que c'était pour vous?
A. I didn’t know why I was there. I didn’t know nothing.
Q. Cela devait être très différent de chez vous?
R. C'était le cas. J'étais effrayé. J'avais si peur.
Q. Vous souvenez-vous avoir eu peur tout le temps que vous y étiez?
A. Yeah. I was always scared because I didn’t know nobody.
— Speaker overcome with emotion
Q. Vous souvenez-vous d'une journée typique à l'école, comme des choses que vous avez pu faire?
— A Short Pause
Q. It’s okay. Take your time. It’s okay.
R. J'avais toujours peur, mais je l'ai gardé à l'intérieur et j'ai simplement essayé de rester très calme. J'avais peur des religieuses et peur des prêtres. Je n'avais jamais vu aucun Blanc sur notre réserve. C'était la première fois que j'y voyais des Blancs et ils étaient tous vêtus de noir.
Q. I guess they didn’t make you feel very safe if you were scared of them.
A. Just being around everybody I didn’t know. And they told us we weren’t supposed to look around when they lined us up in the Rectory, they called it. The other girls weren’t allowed to look around. We weren’t allowed to talk or you would get strapped or get your ears pulled or your hair pulled.
So I couldn’t look for my sisters. I felt alone all my life.
Q. If you weren’t allowed to look around or talk to people was it hard to have friendships? Did you have any friends when you were there?
A. No. Nothing. Because we always seemed to have to be doing something. We always had to be working. We always had to be —
In free time we had to be knitting socks, darning socks, the boys’ socks after school. When we were in school they taught us about God and devils. I don’t remember doing no math and all that. It was always about God and devils.
Q. Do you remember if you received any kind of education? You say you don’t remember math. Did they teach you reading or writing?
A. No. When I finally got out of there they sent me to public school and I didn’t know nothing and I felt so stupid. I was older then. Everybody in the Grade they put me in —
I don’t know what Grade they put me in, but I didn’t know hardly nothing what they were teaching in the public school because that’s all we did was write about God all the time and do tests on that.
Q. Avez-vous terminé l'école publique?
A. No, I didn’t. I just passed into Grade 8 when I left and went to Duncan.
Q. Quel âge aviez-vous lorsque vous avez quitté le pensionnat?
A. I think I might have been ten. I don’t remember my age. I didn’t know I had a birthday until I was thirteen because we never had no birthdays. When I was really little I don’t remember my mom ever having birthday parties.
Q. Savez-vous si votre mère est allée au pensionnat?
R. Oui. Ma sœur aînée a dit qu'elle y était allée, tout comme mon père. Ils sont tous les deux allés à la résidence.
Q. Savez-vous où ils sont allés?
R. Mon père, mon défunt père, est allé à Port Alberni. Et ma défunte maman est allée à Coqualeetza, où que ce soit.
Q. And that wasn’t something that the family talked about?
A. No. My older sister hardly talked about it, but she said that it wasn’t nice. She said that she had to work with the cook and she said she had to cook a lot of rotten meat, spoiled meat, for the kids. My other brothers — I had six brothers – and I have two left. My one brother that’s all he told me was before he died that he had a medical problem that could never be fixed because they kicked him so hard in his rectum that he couldn’t sit too long, what little bit he revealed to me when he visited me. And the doctors couldn’t fix it. He didn’t go right away. They were abused. He was abused.
Q. Quand en avez-vous enfin parlé à vos frères?
R. Mon défunt frère est décédé il y a environ deux ans, donc probablement environ quatre ans. Il avait soixante-dix ans. Il est mort d'un cancer.
Q. Et votre sœur?
A. About two years ago, or something, she was telling me about the food that she had to cook for the kids, about how spoiled the meat was. It was real bad food that she had to cook for us and the other kids. She said that she was there nine years. And she said that they hit her so hard on her ears that she’s deaf now.
— Speaker overcome with emotion
She’s an angry lady. She won’t talk about it. She won’t cry.
Q. Et vous, Velma? Quand en avez-vous parlé pour la première fois?
A. I heard about Scott Hall, the lawyer from Victoria, gathering people and he said that he would help us. So I went over there about six years ago. I don’t know when it was. It was the first time I started talking about it because he told me to go to a psychiatrist over in Duncan there.
Q. Donc, vous n'avez jamais partagé cela après avoir quitté le pensionnat. Vous n'aviez ni amis, ni famille, ni personne avec qui vous avez déjà partagé vos expériences?
A. No, I haven’t.
Q. Savez-vous quelle femme courageuse vous êtes capable de faire cela il y a six ans?
A. I don’t know about this bravery and courage. A lot of people tell me I have it. Since I’ve been going to treatment in Sakaluten (ph.), since it opened, they tell me that. I guess I have it. I don’t know.
Q. Did you ever feel angry that your sister —
R. Oui. J'ai commencé à le ressentir.
I got married when I was only fifteen and a half over in Duncan to my kids’ father. I started having all these kids. I had them year after year. I started feeling anger having so much work to do. But then after going through what the Priest did to me over on Kuper and my brother molested me after my mom died —
I was sent to the Nuns. And I’ve gotten to where I was being sent to Nuns’ rooms and when I would get to the door and it’s dark and then I don’t remember anything.
— Transcriber’s Note: This lady is having such a hard time telling her story through her tears. I have tried to capture all her words but it is very difficult to hear.
I don’t remember. I just opened the door and it’s dark. When I told Scott Hall, those lawyers, they said they don’t believe my story. But they weren’t there when I had to go to the Nuns’ rooms. I know I opened the door and it’s just black.
Je me souviens de ce que ce prêtre m'a fait.
Q. Voulez-vous partager cela avec nous?
A. He used to take us, us little girls, on Sundays he used to take us to some field on Sunday, I guess, when we didn’t have to be in school. It was supposed to be an outing I guess. He used to either grab me or hold me and put me on his lap. He put his hand up —
Parce que nous portions toujours des jupes. Et puis il a mis ses mains sur ma robe, ma jupe. Et je devais rester sur ses genoux jusqu'à ce que nous arrivions sur ce terrain.
Q. Velma, I’m so sorry when you shared that before those people didn’t believe you.
— Speaker overcome with emotion
Q. Vous parliez des religieuses et vous aviez l'habitude d'aller dans leur chambre.
A. I don’t know what I had to do in there.
Q. You don’t remember that part?
A. I remember going to two different Nuns’ rooms. It was dark.
Q. Y avait-il quelqu'un à l'école, d'autres enfants avec qui vous avez pu en parler?
A. No. I don’t know why I was chosen to do that. I don’t know if they had to do it, too. They must have if I had to. They chose me. But I never told nobody.
Q. Vous avez également mentionné que les religieuses avaient l'habitude de vous tirer les oreilles ou de vous tirer les cheveux.
A. I seen them do that to other girls. When I would go get in line, they would tell us to get in line, I would go way to the back so they wouldn’t pick me out or anything. I was scared.
Q. Avez-vous senti que vous aviez un moyen de vous protéger?
R. Non, juste pour être silencieux et ne pas être vu. Je me mettrais derrière les autres filles. Une fille a dit à la religieuse que j'avais des poux dans la tête et elle m'a coupé tous les cheveux. Puis ils m'ont mis ce chiffon blanc sur la tête et j'ai dû aller à l'école avec ce truc blanc sur la tête. J'ai senti que tout le monde se moquait de moi.
Les filles étaient méchantes avec vous. Ils racontaient des mensonges sur d'autres filles juste pour causer des ennuis à quelqu'un. J'ai donc essayé d'être toujours seul.
Q. Êtes-vous déjà retourné dans votre communauté d'origine?
A. Yeah, I’m living there now.
Q. Quand vous étiez enfant, y êtes-vous déjà retourné?
A. I had to go back there. I think I went back there in the summer. I’m not sure if I went home at Christmas. We never had no Christmas dinners either. I don’t remember.
Q. Pouvez-vous me dire en quoi, selon vous, les pensionnats indiens auraient pu affecter votre vie de mère?
A. De nombreuses façons. Je n'ai jamais appris à être amical ou à avoir des amis. Ils n'ont jamais enseigné ces compétences.
On Saturdays they only allowed us to shower once a week there. We had to shower in cold water because there was a whole bunch of us girls lined up to shower every Saturday, I guess it was. I always hate cold water. We had to shower in cold water. It was always cold there. It was cold up in our Dormitory, and especially cold in the winter. It was always dark up there. I was always deathly scared of peeing my bed because girls had to sleep on the floor if they pee’d their bed and then I would hear them crying because they were cold.
Nous avions du parquet. Ils ne nous ont donné qu'une vieille couverture grise. J'avais toujours froid. J'avais toujours froid.
Q. Vous ont-ils fourni des vêtements?
R. Oui, juste un uniforme, une jupe et un chemisier, des chaussettes longues et des chaussures noires.
Q. Des chandails ou des vestes ou quoi que ce soit?
A. You know, I don’t remember any jackets. I don’t know what we used when we went out.
Q. Avez-vous déjà dû dormir par terre?
R. Non, j'avais peur. Je m'assurais toujours d'aller aux toilettes. Eh bien, ils nous l'ont dit. Nous avons dû nous brosser les dents et aller aux toilettes avant de nous coucher vraiment très tôt. Parce qu'ils nous ont réveillés quand il faisait encore nuit pour aller à la messe tous les matins, ils l'appelaient.
Q. We’re just going to change tapes, but I would like to ask you a few more things.
— End of Part 1
Q. D'accord. Es-tu prêt?
A. Um-hmm.
Q. Vous avez parlé de vous réveiller très tôt le matin pour aller à la messe.
R. Oui.
Q. Êtes-vous allé à la messe directement à l'école?
R. Oui, directement à l'école.
Q. Et puis il y avait des cours ou pas vraiment d'éducation, mais qu'avez-vous fait le reste de la journée?
A. We had to darn boys’ socks on the weekend. We were allowed to play for a little while. I remember trying to learn how to play softball, but other than that we were all assigned to do chores around the school. If I didn’t have to go to the Superior, they called her, I remember having to go to her room, too. But if I didn’t have to go there then I had to shine the banisters of the stairs they had. They gave us oil and we had to dust it.
I was assigned different times to clean the Sisters’ —
They had their own Dining Room off the girls’ Dining Hall. I had to clear their dishes off their table after the meal, and the Priests’. I had to clear them off the table different weeks. I guess we had different chores each week throughout the year.
And then having to work in the Laundry Room. I had to go and help. That’s when they did the whole week’s wash. But other than that I don’t remember.
Q. Est-ce que les gens vous ont appelé Velma lorsque vous y étiez?
A. I don’t remember.
Q. Vous souvenez-vous si vous aviez un numéro?
A. Ouais. Mon numéro était quarante-deux.
Q. Est-ce que cela vous est déjà arrivé si vous entendez le nombre quarante-deux?
A. Yes. I was born in 1941. I was always so envious of some of the girls that got visiting on Sundays. Their mother and families —
Personne ne m'a jamais rendu visite là-bas. C'était comme si j'étais une personne toute ma vie.
Q. Vous avez ressenti cela toute votre vie?
A. Yeah. I do still. My children, they don’t bother with me.
Q. Avez-vous des petits-enfants?
A. I have eighteen grandchildren. They don’t bother with me either.
Sometimes they’ll call me. Sometimes my kids will phone me.
Q. Connaissent-ils votre histoire?
R. Non.
Q. How are your kids? Do you know how they’re doing?
A. Dysfonctionnement. Juste un dysfonctionnement.
Q. Votre mari était-il également allé au pensionnat?
A. My kids’ father I divorced in ’72. He didn’t go. He left us when my fifth daughter was a year and a half, he went to the United States and just forgot us. Then I got with a man that went to Kuper Island. I suffered in a terrible violent relationship. So my kids, especially my sons, are very angry about him. They are mad about him and mad at me for being with him, for staying with him and for the abuse that they seen me go through.
I didn’t know how to get out of it.
Q. Saviez-vous que c'était faux?
A. No. I didn’t have any feelings for myself. I didn’t know that I should until eight years ago when my son got killed in a car crash.
— Speaker overcome with emotion
Imaginez qu'il ait fallu une mort pour commencer à ressentir de moi-même, il a fallu la mort de mon fils pour que les sentiments viennent pour moi.
— Speaker overcome with emotion
It breaks my heart that my son, my baby —
I went to Round Lake for treatment because I wanted to kill myself. I wanted to drink again. I was thirteen years sober when he died and I wanted to drink again. I wanted to kill myself so many times, almost every day, because of the pain in my heart. The counselor, she asked me what did I feel when I would get beat up. What did I feel for my dad when he died? I didn’t feel nothing for so many years. I was a shut down person.
Q. Vous vous êtes arrêté.
R. J'ai fermé quand ma mère est décédée et ils m'ont mis en résidence.
— Speaker overcome with emotion
A. I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t know what was going to happen from day to day.
Q. Have you ever come to realize it’s not your fault?
A. Now I’m starting to feel that none of it is my fault. But I’m so angry my mom died and I started getting molested by my brother. Nobody was there to help me, nobody to help me in Residential either, nobody to help me anywhere.
— Speaker overcome with emotion
Q. Vous avez dit que lorsque votre fils est mort subitement, vous avez pu ressentir quelque chose, mais vous vouliez mettre fin à vos jours. Selon vous, qu'est-ce qui vous a poussé à vous accrocher?
A. Because one of the Shaker People (ph.) told me that if I killed myself then I won’t see my son on the other side. And I want to see him. I haven’t even dreamt of him at all. He was my only child that seemed to care about me of all my six children, besides my baby granddaughter I raised. He told me he didn’t blame me for his childhood because he was always in a lot of trouble with the law, going to jail, going to Juvenile when he was younger and jail after.
Il restait à la maison à Nanoose avec moi de temps en temps, ou il restait à la maison avec moi. Alors j'ai ressenti un lien avec lui.
Q. Do you think feeling that loss and deciding to stay here in the world that you’ve healed a little bit since that time, and has this process of sharing helped you at all?
A. I try to think, I try to hope there is something, some purpose that I should go on with life considering all that I went through, but I don’t know what it is. But I don’t see none of my kids. They don’t phone or want to visit me, take time out to visit me in Nanoose. And they all mostly have cars. I guess that’s the way I brought them up and now I’ve learned that’s the way they are.
I can only change myself but I can’t change them. I can only stay sober and be as healthy as I can for myself and be there if they ever need me, like I was for my son before he died.
Q. As far as my questions go, I’ve asked as many as I want to ask and you’ve told me a lot more. But is there anything else that you would like to share with us?
A. Only that I find out when I’ve been going to Sakaluten (ph.) that opened on Quadra Island for survivors of Residential that I know that I’m not the only one that is going through, or are still going through what I did in my life. I have learnt to have faith in something up there, or wherever, a higher power, what I called upon when my son died, and I’ve had cancer, too, to give me the strength to go on that a person can do it.
Every day before I get out of bed I call out: Keep me sober today. Help me with my health because I’m scared my cancer will come back. I don’t know. I wonder if it’s —
Because I felt so much anger, so much anger in myself before that I got cancer. I don’t know.
Q. Beaucoup de gens disent que nos émotions sont liées à notre santé.
A. That’s what they told me in Treatment. I’m scared that it will come back. It’s silly thinking when I so wanted to die before, eh. Now I call upon that higher something to keep me alive today because people tell me about their family members who have cancer and it comes back and they die. I want to be with my son but I want to be here for my other children if they ever need me.
I know for my baby, for Carla, she’s the only one that cares about how I’m doing. To hear her voice on the phone, I want to be here when she wants me. She has given me the strength to go on. And I will as long as I have that.
Q. Velma, je tiens à vous remercier beaucoup d'avoir partagé cela avec nous. Nous apprécions vraiment cela.
Tu te sens bien?
R. Oui.
Q. D'accord.
— End of Interview