THE INTERVIEWER: So if you can just say and spell your name for us. That’s just so we have it matching the records here.
SHIRLEY FLOWERS: Okay. My name is Shirley Flowers. S-h-i-r-l-e-y F-l-o-w-e-r-s.
Q. And where are you from?
A. I’m originally from Rigolet, Labrador. I’m now living in Goose Bay.
Q. What school did you attend?
A. I was at Yale School in North West River. I lived in the residence there, the dormitory, we called it.
Q. What years were you there?
A. I was there 1966 to 1967, that school year. And then I moved and lived with one of my sisters in another community, and then I went back another year. But I ran away that year.
Q. So you were there for 2 years then?
A. Not 2 full years, as I ran away.
Q. Okay. We can talk about that a little bit later.
How old were you when you started?
A. Thirteen.
Q. Did you go to school before then?
A. Yes, I did, in my home town. We had up to Grade 8.
Q. Was it a day school? Like you would go home at the end of the day.
A. Yes.
Q. So what happened that you had to go to Residential School?
A. Our schools only went up as high as Grade 8, and so I guess until you’re sixteen or something you had to go to school.
Q. So that was the only school?
A. That was the only thing you could do.
Q. Do you remember your first day?
A. Yes.
Q. Can you talk about that a little bit?
A. I remember leaving home. We left on a float plane, myself and my brother went that year. I remember mom got us ready and tried to make us look good, or whatever. We were the first ones to get there, and it was totally foreign to me. I had not lived with electricity or toilets and that style of living before. So it was totally foreign.
I remember getting there and sitting with what we called house parents, sitting with the house parents at their table. I was too afraid to eat. There was corn on the cob, or something, on the plate, and I didn’t want to eat it because I was scared I might be too messy and they might punish me. I had heard stories from before. My mother had gone, as well, when she was young.
Q. What did she tell you?
A. I think it was pretty tough. She left at a very young age and I think she was gone for 8 years. She wasn’t allowed to go back until —
Maybe she was eleven and she didn’t go back until she was eighteen, or something. It was pretty tough.
So I was kind of afraid. I also remember in the dorm, where the bedrooms were, I remember walking to go to bed because they showed me where my room was and there was this room with all these beds in it. I was the only person there. I remember walking across the main area to go to my room and I heard a click and the lights went out. I didn’t know about electricity and I didn’t know they could control it. I thought there were ghosts. So I had to go in and stay there by myself. It was quite terrifying.
Also, too, I think they took me and tried to de-louse me, or something.
Q. So can you take us through a typical day at school, what time you would wake up, what things you would eat, the education.
A. Depending on what you were doing, I think you had to get up at 7 maybe —
— Speaker overcome with emotion
We had to do all the chores. If we worked in the kitchen we had to get up and get the breakfast ready and look after whoever you sat with at the table. I was thirteen and I was considered a bigger girl, so we had to serve the boys, and little ones, whoever was at our table.
We had to do our chores throughout the day because we maintained it. We did the cleaning and everything.
At night time we were set aside for studies. We had little time to be free or out to do whatever.
Q. What about the food. What was that like?
A. There wasn’t enough. I learned to steal. If it was my turn in the kitchen I stole, and I stole enough for other kids. Some of the stuff I had never seen before because I was used to eating wild meat and stuff like that. I didn’t like it.
Q. When you lived at home were you speaking your language?
A. It was gone years before that. My language was lost generations ago, I think. That wasn’t an issue.
But there were issues around —
Out in the community, too, there was a lot of prejudice, I guess, because we were from the coastal communities and it seemed like people must have thought of us as poor, I don’t know, or whatever. We were probably thought of as welfare cases just because we were there. That was the situation all the time. So we were kind of judged on certain things.
Q. Was it a big school with a lot of kids?
A. In the dorm there were about seventy of us, I guess. There were 2 buildings. One was for little kids and the bigger one, where I was, housed the bigger kids. But even in there they were separated into big girls and little girls, whatever. It was age groups, probably from age 5 to sixteen, seventeen, whatever.
Q. So how would you describe your experience at Residential School?
A. It was frightening leaving home. I think for me some of the stuff came before I left, the dread of it and seeing my mother crying when my siblings left. I think I was impacted before I went. I remember seeing some of that, and seeing my brothers and sisters coming home and they were supposed to be my family but they were strangers. They came home strangers and we were related to each other.
And then knowing I was going into —
Some of the stories people told, the tough work, and whatever, not being free and not being able to have contact with home was scary. I was always scared someone was going to die and I may never see them again or get to them before they would die, before I could get home.
It was pretty scary.
Q. Do you have any good memories from your time there?
A. I’m sure there’s some. I’m glad to be me today. I’m glad I am where I am. I became an alcoholic but I gave up drinking twenty-one years ago and I’m getting my life together. I think some of the reasons for my drinking —
I started drinking. I had my first drink when I was in Residential School, in the dorm. Some of it stemmed from there. But I’m still glad to be where I am, and I’m glad I got the schooling I got. It was no great amount, but I did get some. It has helped me to be who I am today, or get to where I want to go.
Q. Can you talk about the time you ran away and how that transpired? What made you want to run away?
A. Somehow even when I was little, like I was telling you, I seen my mother crying, I knew that there was something not right. I’m thinking there’s something wrong. They can’t take us and put us away like that. I almost felt like I was in prison when I was there. They can’t do that to me. So I was a little bit older and rebellious, I suppose, so I packed up and I ran away.
I have something written that says that. It has been published in a couple of magazines, and stuff. It talks about that.
Q. Did you get caught after you ran away and made to go back?
A. No.
Q. Did you go home?
A. I went home.
Q. What was that like, going back to your mom?
A. It was good. I went home. I stayed home that year, but I went back to school after that and finished.
Q. I want to talk a little bit about your healing, and then maybe about what this school in particular is going through government-wise. But before we move on, are there any final things you would like to say about your experiences at the school?
A. I don’t know what to say about it all. It’s a tough thing to try to understand it all, and maybe I never will. And maybe that’s a good thing. I don’t know. But I want to know enough and learn enough so that I don’t continue things like forcing people to do things that they don’t want to do. I want to be better.
Q. Do you have children?
A. Yes, I do.
Q. Is it hard for you to talk to them about your experiences?
A. I realized something when my daughter turned thirteen, and I remember specifically where I was. I was looking at her and thinking, “Oh my gawd, how do I be a mother to this thirteen year old”, because that was my age when I left. I have another daughter now. She’s my great niece but I’m raising her, and she’s coming up to that age and I’m thinking. I’m back there again. How do I be a mother? She’s going to be a thirteen year old. So at least I’m conscious of it and thinking.
Q. Do they ever ask you questions about going to the Residential School?
A. Not a lot, not a lot of questions, but they are all aware of it. And I’ve written stuff and they read it, or whatever.
Q. Do you find writing things is the easiest way to express it?
A. Yes.
Q. Are you able to write your experiences down?
A. I’ve got some things written, yes. I wrote a poem. It’s called Gong to the Dorm, and I especially wanted to honour my mother because she had gone for so many years and I’m not sure that she was able to express her experiences. So I wrote this poem to honour her.
Q. Do you have the poem memorized? Would you be able to repeat it?
A. I have a copy with me. It’s upstairs, I think.
Q. Could you read it, or say it right now for us? Or is it not memorized.
A. I don’t have it all memorized. I know mostly what’s in it. I start off by saying, “My mother sits by the window crying, her heart is breaking. It’s the same memory every fall. The plane is taking her children away.”
It’s about them going to school and being gone for ten months. I’m not sure of it totally. And I go right to where I’m raising my thirteen year old daughter.
Q. So bringing it right back to your own children.
A. Um-hmm.
Q. So what kind of healing are you involved in? Obviously the writing is healing.
A. The writing is very healing and talking a lot with other people who had the same experience.
Q. Are you involved in any healing groups or anything?
A. That’s some of my work, yes.
Q. Can you tell us a little bit about Yale School and how it’s not recognized as a Residential School?
A. That school, that dorm, was operated by the International Grenfell Association, I guess, Mission, or whatever. As far as I know it was not recognized as being a Residential School, or there even being any Residential Schools in Labrador. There were others that were operated by the Moravian missionaries.
And I think what we have to do somehow, and we may or we may not do, is prove that federal dollars went into the running of the schools, the dorms. We are in the process of trying to find that out now.
Q. Are there a lot of people who believe there were federal dollars involved and it’s just a matter of finding those documents?
A. Yes. I think there’s a good possibility that we will find a connection.
Q. How does it feel when you are in Labrador, for yourself and other people who went to the school, when there’s so much controversy about Residential Schools right now in the country, and you’re not recognized as being a part of that?
A. Well, it’s pretty frustrating. To me I guess —
I questioned somebody one time, I think he was with the Canadian Government, at this Alternative Dispute Resolution. They were reading in their documents that there were no schools in Labrador. He said, “No.” I said, “Well, I went to a school.” “I had that experience.” But he said that there were no federal dollars attached. But I said, “That’s a technicality.”
It doesn’t take away from my experiences. We still went through the same thing. It’s just who did it, I guess, or who they are trying to say is responsible. The dollar bill I don’t think is always responsible. There’s people who distribute those dollar bills.
Q. What about the Mission itself. Is it still in existence and has anyone gone after the Mission for compensation?
A. I don’t think anybody has gone after the Mission itself. And it’s like things have changed. There are no schools there now, obviously. They closed down in the seventies, I think. They also ran the hospital. But it’s a whole new thing now. There’s a new board and it’s run differently in connection with the Province. It’s different.
Q. What church was it?
A. I think it was the United Church, or maybe the Anglican Church was involved.
Q. Maybe the Anglican Church. You’re not sure?
A. I’m not quite sure which one. United, maybe.
I was talking about it with my brother last night. I’m staying with my brother here. He thought it was the United Church.
But there were other schools, too, like in Maine. They were run by the Moravian missionaries.
Q. Who are the Moravian missionaries? What church is that?
A. It’s the Moravian church.
Q. Okay. It’s the Moravian church.
A. I think they originate in Germany.
Q. Okay. Well, do you have any final things you would like to say?
A. No. But I thank you for the opportunity to share my story. I don’t think I really publicly spoke about it, although I’ve written about it. That’s been very public. Writing is very public, but it’s different when I say it and hear myself speak. Thank you.
Q. Thank you very much. You did very well. I know it wasn’t your first choice to come up here. You weren’t sure about it. So thank you very, very much. You are the only one that we’ve heard from, from a school that isn’t recognized. That’s a very important story to hear.
— End of Interview