THE INTERVIEWER: We’ll begin. If you could just tell me what your name is and say and spell your name for me.
EUNICE GRAY: Well, my name is Eunice Gray; E-u-n-i-c-e
G-r-a-y. I live in Tikamik (sp?), Alberta, on the Reserve.
Q. Okay. Where are you from?
A. I’m from Whitefish Lake, Tikamik (ph.). It’s the same thing.
Q. That’s where you were born.
A. Yeah. That’s where I went to school.
Q. What school did you attend?
A. I went to St. Andrew’s Anglican Mission.
Q. What years were you there?
A. I was there from the time I was —
I’m seventy-four now. I was there from when I was 8 years old until I was sixteen.
Q. So what year would that have been?
A. ’48. I don’t know how old. When I was sixteen, anyway.
Q. Do you remember the first day you went there?
A. I kind of remember in a way because it was my mom that took me there. My mom took me there. I used to cry for my dad. I didn’t cry for my mom when she would come and see me, only my dad. My dad told my mom to take me, to put me in the Mission because my parents were told that I had to go in.
Q. Do you remember what a typical day would have been like in the school?
A. We used to only go to school from one to 3:30. We didn’t go to school all day long. The little ones, they went to school in the morning and the older girls, we all went to school from one to 3:30. We used to always have a half an hour to play, or whatever, and then we would have to go prepare the meals for the rest of the children and the staff.
We used to have our parents come and see us. They would bring something, like eat with them. There used to be a special place there where our parents could bring some kind of food, or something, and we could eat with them. That was on Saturdays. But some of the kids’ parents never showed up, so we used to share with the kids.
Q. And your parents?
A. My mother used to always come. My dad didn’t come because he used to look after the store. We had a bunch of minks, and stuff, and cattle. I used to cry for him if he came.
Q. Did he ever come?
A. He used to come once in a while. At Christmas he used to bring me something.
Q. It must have been nice to be able to see them when they would come.
A. Um-hmm. But we weren’t that closed in the Anglican Mission there. We weren’t totally closed in from our parents because we could see them Saturdays if they came.
Q. Did your mom come most of the time?
A. If she didn’t have anything to do she would come because there were my 4 other sisters. She had to look after the younger ones. She couldn’t come all the time. She had kids to look after.
Q. What was it like at the school for you?
A. It was a home. We had to work hard. We had to wash floors on our knees. We had to wash clothes with a washboard. We had to stand there and iron the clothes, hang them up outside. We did all the sewing and stuff. We were just like a mother would work at home. That’s how we looked after —
All the older girls looked after the younger ones. The staff members and the older girls, we looked after everybody. They just did the supervising. We did all the work, all the cooking and stuff, we did everything. The little ones, they never did anything. They had a good life!
Q. You were a little one at some point?
A. Yeah. Just like when you turn sixteen, you go. And then these other ones, the seniors, it was like that. It was just like something going round and round, rotating. Like so many would turn sixteen during the year and then they would leave.
When you were sixteen —
Every summer we were allowed to go home for 2 months. We took everything. We stripped our bed. We took everything that was on our bed, even the pillows. Just the mattress and the bed stayed there. And all our clothes, we would take all that home. And then again when we would go into the Mission in September, they would give us fresh bedding and stuff.
Q. Was going home in the summer something you looked forward to?
A. In a way we did and in a way it was more like a home because that was the only home we really knew. Some of the staff members were good. Some were mean. The bad ones always got it. Other than that it was a home. You know, everybody gets in trouble when they’re at home.
Q. What do you mean by the bad ones always got it?
A. Well, there were some bad kids who did all kinds of things. They didn’t listen, and stuff like that. They used to get a strap with a ruler, this way (indicating) not that way. We would put our hands like that (indicating). Always the one that starts never got it. It’s the ones that got caught, they would get it. That used to hurt if you get hit here (indicating) in school.
Q. And for yourself, do you remember that happening to you?
A. I think I had that a couple of times that I can remember.
Q. It sounds like you worked very hard at that home?
A. We did work hard. We did everything. Now today my knees bother me. I’ve got arthritis bad. We used to have to hang clothes up. It didn’t matter how cold it was, we would have to go hang the clothes up. And before we went to bed we had to bring them all in and hang them up inside.
Q. Did you have many friends at school?
A. Oh yeah, the girls. We had no choice. Like today now we used to have to finish at a certain time. You had to finish your work. Like today now I can’t —
If I start doing something I have to finish it. I learned that from being in the Mission. Anything you do, you have to finish. It doesn’t matter what it is. At least the way I look at it is we were taught how to work, you know, and be responsible for the things you do. It don’t matter how mean the staff were, we still learned something.
Q. And they were mean?
A. Some were mean and some weren’t. Every year they changed. Only the Matron never changed. The Minister, he was always the same one. We could hear him coming. He used to have asthma real bad and you could hear him breathing. From far you could hear him.
Q. What was he like?
A. He wasn’t bad. He was nice. He was kind. But he had to strap us when we were bad. That was his job.
Q. And the Matron?
A. The Matron was more like a nurse, the Matron was like a nurse. Later on I think when I was fourteen I used to work in the kitchen all the time and later on when I was fourteen years old she left and she got married to a guy that was all crippled up and was on this special bed. It used to be like square. It was all chrome and stuff. His hands were all crippled up. He always stayed on the bed. He never got out of there.
The last couple of years, that’s all I did was look after her husband.
Q. How was the Matron as a person?
A. She was cranky, but she wasn’t bad. She was nice. She could be nice if she wanted to be. She was kind to me because I looked after her husband for her.
Q. She must have appreciated that.
A. Yeah.
Q. So the staff you said would change?
A. Every year there were different ones. The teacher was always the same one and the Matron was always the same one. But the boys —
It was a lady who looked after the boys and the girls, we all had different —
The little girls and the big girls, it was different. The big boys and the little boys. The little boys got it good and the little girls. It’s the older ones that did the work. They got it.
Q. And the teacher. How was the teacher?
A. She was nice. She wasn’t bad, not really bad. She was nice.
Q. It must have been interesting in September when you would come back to school each year, wondering who the staff would be.
A. Yeah, it was always different ones. But the teacher was always the same, and the Matron, she didn’t leave because of her crippled husband. She always stayed.
It wasn’t really that bad staying in the Mission. It was just the work, eh. We always had to work hard, especially washing clothes was the hardest, and the floors, because the boys clothes were always so hard to wash on the washboard, the boys pants, and that.
And the blankets were hard to wash. It was just like a slave.
Q. That’s what it sounds like to me is that you learned how to work very very hard.
A. Yeah. I’ve always worked hard. I raised my kids by myself. I was a single parent. My husband and I broke up. So I raised the kids. I worked hard in Edmonton raising my family. Then after they were all —
When my youngest one was eighteen I moved back to the Reserve.
But I wasn’t sorry I went in the Mission. I learned lots.
Q. Did you have friends there who experienced other things, who didn’t have very good experiences, or were you —
A. Not that I know of. More or less everybody was treated the same. It wasn’t bad, really. Because the little kids, they were treated good. I didn’t see anything bad with the younger ones. All they did was went to school and played. It’s the older ones that had to do all the hard work.
Q. So you feel that the hard work that you learned how to do when you were in school was good for you later on in life, too?
A. Yeah. I looked after my family. I still look after them, even though I’m in a wheelchair and use a walker, I still look after my house. I live by myself.
Q. I’m curious why you decided to move back to the Reserve after your kids had grown up.
A. They didn’t need me. (Laughter) I thought, you know, my dad always said that you can’t always have your kids around you. One of these days you’re going to die and what are they going to do if they are always right beside you all the time. So I thought, well, they’re all on their own, I’ll step away. But they came to me!
There’s only 2 of them that live in the city now.
Q. And the others?
A. They all live on the Reserve!
Q. So they couldn’t live without you?
A. No. (Laughter)
Q. So when you were sixteen, your last year, do you remember your last year at the school?
A. Yeah, because I was looking after that crippled guy. I had an easy life the last 2 years. That’s all I did was look after the old man, there. I don’t know if he was old or not. He was crippled up. I had to polish his bed. It was full of chrome on the outside. It was a real fancy bed.
Q. I guess you did everything for him, then.
A. Yeah.
Q. And then when it was time to leave the school, what was that like?
A. He hated to see me go. He said that I was very kind and he respected me for what I did for him.
Q. And for yourself, leaving the school?
A. I didn’t mind. When I left the Mission I went to Athabasca and worked in a restaurant.
Q. Now of course you would be paid money to work instead of working in the school?
A. I had to make a living. Nobody is going to feed me for nothing.
My mom and I never got along. I was the black sheep of the family. My mom only went for the other kids, the younger ones.
Q. And you are the oldest?
A. I’m the oldest; yeah. That’s why I was closer to my dad because of the way my mom treated me. And then when I came back on the Reserve I was the one that took my mom in and looked after her until she died. But that lady wanted me to say that.
My dad used to talk to me a lot. We was talking about this Residential School stuff. He was raised in the Anglican Mission, too, in Mr. White’s days. That was the first Minister that was there, Mr. White. That’s when my dad was there. And he said, “You know, if we weren’t Treaties we wouldn’t be in this mess, you wouldn’t be in the Mission.” “Only Treaties go in the Mission.” The government takes the kids, the half breeds. He said, “They don’t bother with them because they’re not Treaties.” But if a half breed, a Metis, or something like that was to go into the Mission, their parents had to pay to be put in there. Or orphans, they used to put them in the Mission.
But what really started was the government paid for the Treaties to be raised in the Mission. I don’t know why, but that’s how it was.
Like that guy was talking about, saying Metis this and Metis that. I don’t think he really understood what happened a long time ago. If you weren’t a Treaty you couldn’t be in the Mission unless your parents were willing to pay for you to stay there. That was the way the government put it for the people. But he worded it different.
I was telling that lady that. I said that he didn’t get that straight. Because there were 2 or 3 in St. Andrew’s that had the same thing. We had 2 or 3 Metis Colony kids and their parents had to pay. It wasn’t much, but at least it paid for their meals and stuff. I guess you would say —
Like today it’s your meals, eh. But I don’t know what they paid for; room and board, I guess.
Q. Did your dad tell you much about his experience in school?
A. Well, my dad always talked about the flu a long time ago. Him and Mr. White and another guy, they used to across the river, they call it Big Lake, and there’s another Reserve at the other side of the lake there. They helped Mr. White go and put water and wood for the sick. When they would enter the place sometimes they were all dead. Sometimes there would be one that wasn’t and they used to just wrap them up in cotton blankets there – I don’t know what they are really called. They had blankets and they would wrap them up in there and throw them in the sleigh, the big sleigh, and then they would cut wood for whoever was still alive, and water. They used to do that to all the houses. He said it used to be pitiful watching them. He said, “I don’t know how I ever got away with it that I never got that flu.” People were dying.
He used to work with Mr. White who was the Minister in those days when that flu was around. But he was raised in the Mission, too. My dad always looked at other people and he always had them —
He had them cut the wood, or something, and he would pay them. He always helped the other people. He looked after his own family, besides other people. He tried to help them. He was always like that. Because he was taught that, to not really look at himself but to look beyond himself.
Q. Is he still alive?
A. No. He died in ’87 I think.
Q. Was that before you went back?
A. Before I went back. Yeah, I went home in ’83. Now I’m still there. But now my working days are over. I’m getting all crippled up.
Q. It sounds like you spent a long time in your life working hard.
A. I worked here in the hospital for 9 years before I moved to Edmonton. Then in Edmonton I was a caretaker. I did all kinds of jobs.
What else do you want to know?
Q. Is there anything else you want to say?
A. No.
Q. I’m curious. Do you feel that your experience at school, the Mission school, was something that you needed to heal from, you know?
A. I know what you mean. My kids are always saying, “You’re not in Residential School now.” Just like my late husband there, he went through hell because they were mean to him in Grouard. When he left us, me and the kids, I raised 8 kids all by myself, I worked and raised them all and he had the easy life doing nothing.
But I ain’t sorry I raised my kids by myself. It’s a good experience. I think going to the Mission was a good experience. There were hard times and good times. But I think if you help yourself you can get healed. You can heal yourself. You’ve just got to put your mind up to it. That’s how I take it.
My family was wrecked because of alcohol. I don’t know if the Mission —
He went to school in Grouard and that’s where the mean ones were. I don’t know if that wrecked his home life. I don’t know. It’s hard to talk for him. But I have a tape at home that he had made I guess and he talks about his life in the Mission. His life in the Mission was what wrecked his family life. That’s what he said on there. So I don’t know. It’s so long ago.
Q. Okay. I appreciate you talking to us today. It was very kind of you.
A. Yeah.
Q. All the very best to you.
A. Thank you.
— End of Interview