THE INTERVIEWER: Can you say and spell your name, please.
MARY CAESAR: My name is Mary Caesar.
Q. Can you spell that, please?
A. M-a-r-y C-a-e-s-a-r.
Q. What community are you from, Mary?
A. From Watson Lake, Yukon.
Q. What Residential School did you attend?
A. Lower Post Residential School.
Q. Lower Post?
A. Yes. It is in northern BC. It’s about 15 miles south of Watson Lake.
Q. How old were you when you started there?
A. I went to school there when I was 4 years old.
Q. How many years were you there?
A. I was there for 4 years.
Q. Do you remember what your first day was like when you started Residential School?
A. I remember my first day. I don’t remember what kind of vehicle I went in, but I remember my first day. I was riding with a bunch of kids. We got off in front of the Residential School. I was feeling really confused and emotional because I was wondering where we were going. I remembered we were going to the school, but I didn’t know what kind of school it was. I was kind of excited, too, because my older sisters went to that school. I thought it was a good school.
When I got off that bus, or whatever vehicle that I rode going to that school, I remember going up the steps to this Residential School. I looked up and I saw this big building. I just got scared and I thought I wanted to be with my parents. I went in with the other kids. I remember we were in a line-up. It was really scary for me. Even the first day it was traumatic.
Q. Can you tell me what a typical day would be like for you, from morning til evening?
A. It was stressful. It was terrifying. It was just traumatic. I didn’t know what to expect. I just knew that —
I just felt scared for my safety because I remember the first day, or the first couple of days we had to line up and we had to get our number. We had to line up and get our number. We had to get our hair checked for lice. And then I remember Sister Alkwa (ph.) the Nun who was my supervisor, she made sure we were all in the line-up. I remember kids getting their hair cut.
I remember being showered and just scrubbed clean, until my skin was red and raw. Sister Alkwa (ph.) asked us to take our shower, and I had to wash my hair with lice shampoo, even though I didn’t have lice. I remember just being really traumatized. I was scared.
Every day it seemed like I was always scared because Sister Alkwa (ph.) was really mean and cruel.
From morning until night it was just regimented, like we had to follow rules. We had to wake up about 6 o’clock in the morning. Then at 7 o’clock we had to go to Mass. We had to go to the chapel. And then I think it was 7:30 we had breakfast, and after breakfast we had to go to our class. It was just rules and regulations. I just felt like I was in a concentration camp, or some kind of army camp.
Q. For those 4 years did you go home for the summer, or at holiday time?
A. Yes. I went home for Christmas and summer. For Christmas we went home for about ten days. And then in the summer we went home in June, til September. I really enjoyed my summer holidays with my parents, but I just dreaded going back to that school in September. Like towards the end of August when we knew we had to go back to school, I just dreaded going back to school.
Q. Your parents at that time when you were having to go back to school, as a family how were you all dealing with that, with having to go back to school?
A. I think we were all just really devastated. I think my parents really didn’t have a choice but to send us there because I learned after that my parents would have been thrown in jail if they didn’t send us kids there. It was really hard for us. But we had to go to school. My parents didn’t have a choice but to send us there.
I remember it was really hard for me to go back to school because it was so horrific there.
Q. Do you have any particular memories or experiences at the Residential School that you want to share?
A. Yes. Some of the experiences I went through were really horrific. I saw a lot of atrocities happen at the school, and I saw a lot of suffering. I was traumatized there, too. I was sexually and physically abused at that school. Some of the ways we were punished were, like if we spoke in our language, some of us kids had our mouth washed out with soap. They would just punish us for anything, just for being kids. If we laughed or if we expressed ourselves, or if we would express our opinion, or even showed any joy or laughter, we would get punished for that. They would just use it as an excuse to punish us.
And Sister Alkwa (ph.) I remember she always whacked me on the head with her fists or her palms. She would always hit me on my arm, right here (indicating). Every day she always picked on me. I remember she had this ping pong paddle. They used to play ping pong. She used that wooden paddle to whack me on the arms or on my backside. Sometimes she would punch me in the head with her fists, or whack me on the head with her open palms, like really hard, too. She just whacked me around with her fists and her palms. Sometimes she would use a ruler. Us girls were just terrified of her.
Some of the ways they punished us I remember to keep us sitting still in kindergarten, or in class, they would stick straight pins in our thighs, our hips and our backside to keep us sitting still.
For punishment sometimes I had to wash the gym floor with a glass of soapy water and a toothbrush, and the stairways, too. There were 3 flights of stairs. The school was 3 storeys. Sometimes I had to wash the stairways with a glass of soapy water and a toothbrush.
Sometimes for punishment we had to sit on rulers for hours. I remember one time my cousin had impetigo, sores on her head, and Sister Alkwa (ph.) shaved her hair off with an electric razor. I remember my cousin just screaming. There was blood and pus on the floor beneath her chair, like around her chair.
I felt like Sister Alkwa (ph.) picked on me a lot. I remember her words, too, to this day. I remember her. She would always tell me, “You’ll never amount to anything, lady Jane.” And she would just whack me on the head. And then she would call me a harlot and a little flirt. And here I was 5 years old, 4 years old, 5 years old. I didn’t even know what those words meant until I became a teenager. I read a lot when I was a teenager and I looked up those words in a dictionary. I learned what those words were. Sister Alkwa (ph.) was really mean and cruel.
She humiliated me. Sometimes for punishment if any of the girls passed gas in their underwear, we had to stand in the dormitory for hours with our soiled underwear on our heads. Sometimes kids that wet their beds, they had to walk through the Dorm and the Dining Room with their soiled sheets on their head.
Sometimes we ate spoiled food. I remember eating spoiled soup. It tasted sort of like rotten food, and we had to eat that, too. Spoiled soup.
Sometimes kids had to steal from the garden because they were hungry most of the time there. Kids had to steal. Some kids stole carrots or apples from the kitchen, just because we were hungry most of the time.
I remember eating porridge. That’s what I ate most of the time. We ate porridge for breakfast.
To this day I’m still traumatized. I still have PTSD. I still have nightmares. I have anxiety attacks.
But I’ve been on my healing journey since 1990, when I sobered up. What I went through at Residential School affected every aspect of my life.
Q. So can you talk a bit about your healing journey since Residential School?
A. Since I sobered up I have been on this healing journey. It is about fifteen years, I guess. Since I sobered up and stopped drinking I’ve been going back to school. I got back into my art work. I’m a writer, too, so I write. I haven’t written anything for a while, but I have a book of poems that I would like to publish.
I have 2 sons that I have to look after, that I feel I’m just getting to know, too. My sons and I were separated when they were young. Residential School affected my parenting skills, and my son’s dad took them to Ontario so I’m just starting to get to know my sons now. I’m trying to rebuild our relationship.
A lot of good things have been happening. I believe the Creator is opening up doors for me with my art work. Sometimes it gets kind of overwhelming, but I live a day at a time. It’s my faith in the Creator that keeps me going. And my art, too, it helps me to cope. It helps me to cope with all the memories and the trauma I went through at the school. It helps me with my healing.
Q. It’s a way of expressing yourself, through your art?
A. Yes.
Q. Okay, Mary, is there anything else that you would like to add?
A. Well, I just want to say that there were a lot of other traumatic things that I experienced at the school. I’m still working on my healing. I just feel that I have a long way to go yet on my healing, but I’ve been on this healing journey for many years and throughout the years I had a lot of teachers and mentors that have helped me. I have had 3 years of treatment, or therapy, for my issues and my experiences I went through at the school.
But I’m a survivor. I survived that experience, and if I could survive that, I could survive anything. I believe I have a purpose and that purpose is to help my People to heal, too, through my art and through my writings.
I want to be able to help my family. I want to get to know my sons again. I want to help my family in some way, to help them on their healing journey. So I’m still healing, you know, I’m still working on my healing, even after all these years. The pain will always be there. But like I said, I’m a survivor. I’ve still got a long way to go yet and I still have a lot to learn.
Okay?
Q. Thank you.
Do you want to talk anything more about the Conference or your feelings on that? You were talking about how you see some people here that you were in school with. Is it part of your healing journey, Conferences like this? Do they have a purpose?
Do you have any thoughts on that?
A. Yes. It’s always kind of stressful and kind of overwhelming to come to these kinds of Conferences, Healing Conferences, because it always stirs up memories and stirs up emotions. It stirs up feelings for me.
But I feel like it is giving me strength, too, to come forward more and to express myself and to talk about it, because I kind of isolated myself, eh, for a long time. I just feel that it is time for me to start getting out there, start telling my story and start sharing my story. I feel that these Conferences help me to work on my issues and to regain strength, because I’m still on this healing journey, you know.
I’m still learning and I’m still healing and I’m still growing. Sometimes when I come to these Conferences I feel like I’m a little girl again. I’m that child again, back there. But now I’m an adult and I’ve got to try to put the pieces of my childhood back together again.
Do you know what I mean?
Q. I understand.
A. So I’m just kind of tired, too, you know, because I’ve been on this healing journey for so many years. I just think when is it ever going to end, you know. But I just feel that by sharing my story I might be able to help other survivors.
Q. Thank you for sharing your story.
A. Thank you.
— End of Interview