George Francis
Shubenacadie Indian Residential School
THE INTERVIEWER: Okay. If we can just start by you telling us your name and spelling it for us, for the camera, please.
GEORGE FRANCIS: My name is George Francis. I’m from Eskasoni.
Q. Eskasoni?
A. I was taken away in 1951.
Q. How old were you then?
A. About eleven years old, about ten years old. I was born in 1940.
Q. You were taken away. Can you talk about what you remember about that first day when you were taken away?
A. I was taken away. We went down. We travelled by train for about ten hours to get to Residential School, Shubenacadie. We were all happy that we were going somewhere. But when they told us you got to take your clothes off and change into their clothes, eh, what they had for us. They had for us RCMP shirts and RCMP pants and RCMP boots. The boots were all right on the sole when I put them on the first year. But at the end of the year the soles went out on me.
Q. Did they give you new boots?
A. They gave me another pair about 2 months later.
Q. Do you remember anything else about that first day?
A. The first day. We went to school wearing all these “Johnny” clothes. People, my children, call them “Johnny” clothes now. I wouldn’t buy them “Johnny” clothes; no way. I bought them the best clothes they ever had.
But in Residential School you don’t get anything best.
Q. Can you tell us about a typical day, what time you would wake up in the morning?
A. We woke up in the morning at 5 o’clock. We heard the sound of a stick on top of the drawer. The drawer was about —
Everybody’s boxes were all lined up, and when the Sister went like that (indicating) on top of the drawer with a stick, it means we had to get up. We took a shower. There were twenty-five of us in the showers. There were twenty-five stalls. We were timed. They tell me, “wash your neck, clean your neck with a scrubbing brush.” “Clean your hands with a scrubbing brush.” But they never told me “clean your face with the scrubbing brush”. I wouldn’t have done it anyway. They gave me a face cloth to wipe my face and I washed my hair. There were large combs to comb my hair.
About forty-five minutes later we were ready to go to school for 8 o’clock, the first day of school.
I was a little humiliated by these clothes I was wearing. The Sister over there slapped me and everybody laughed. On another occasion everybody was suspended, everybody has to stay during dinner, the dinner hour, and later that day had to stay until 4 o’clock in the afternoon.
Q. What about breakfast. What did you have?
A. Breakfast, We had porridge every morning, three hundred and sixty-five days, we had porridge. No eggs. But we had bread. We would get 2 pieces of bread. If somebody takes your bread from you walking by you are out of 1 bread, so I kept that bread.
I can’t dare to fight because the other boys told me that if you fight for bread you won’t get nothing for a week, no bread for a week.
Q. Did you go to chapel in the morning, or anything like that?
A. Yeah. We went to chapel every morning. We said the rosary then down we go to school. About 5 o’clock or 6 o’clock, after supper, we go to the chapel again and say the rosary in English.
Q. Did you speak your language before you went to Residential School?
A. Yes, I did. But I was prohibited from using my language. They wanted to understand what I was saying. I hardly spoke English. I had broken English. While I was there, every now and then, they would bang me on the head and bang my hands and the Sister told me, “okay, put your hand out.” I put my hand out. She hit me with a stick.
And then a couple of months later I was so frustrated I didn’t even see my sister.
Q. You didn’t see your sister from your first day you went there. You couldn’t see her?
A. I couldn’t see her.
And my uncle visited us, Uncle Roger Gould (sp?) from Eskasoni. He took some pictures. I don’t know if he took some pictures of us. He was told to get outta here. He was told it was an invasion of privacy.
Q. Do you know why he came to take pictures?
A. He knew I was there. You know, he’s my greatest uncle. I love my uncles. He said, “When I come again in the spring time I’ll bring your mom and dad.” He was talking to me about it. He was prohibited. I suffered the consequences for that.
Q. What happened?
A. I stayed in the washroom with soap in my mouth because we were talking Mi’kmaw. One of the boys from Memberton said, “I wouldn’t do that.” “Throw the dam soap away.” So I became a radical over there, untrainable. I loved what they were teaching. I loved math. And history, I couldn’t get it, you know, because they were treating us different from what it says in the history books. “Nuns are kind”, and all that. Nuns were not kind in the Residential School.
Q. Can you tell us some of your experiences at Residential School?
A. I ran away in the spring time. I ran away. When I ran away when I reached —
Near Stewiacke, about a mile or a half a mile from Stewiacke, I didn’t know what distance it was. I was treated not as the other boys were, eh. I was in the soap room for 4 days, no lights. But I was given food twice a day, in the morning and in the evening.
Q. What’s the soap room?
A. The soap room is where all the soap used to be, eh. In a couple of years it would be gone.
Q. Is that where you were put when you ran away, for your punishment?
A. Yeah. That was my punishment.
Q. Why did you run away?
A. Because I was tortured by the boys, not by my own guys, my own friends, but they know how to intimidate a person. There was a guy named Nelson Paul (sp?) who used to beat me up when I got out of school and we were on the playground, playing rugby. He used to punch me in the mouth and punch me in the face. My friend told me, “George, don’t take that, fight back.” I fought back and I beat him. But I didn’t beat him to death. I maybe beat him until he said, “Okay, I give up.”
Q. What would the Nuns do if they saw you fighting?
A. They would have beaten us with a stick. The stick was about a half inch square and about 3 feet long. Everybody was scared of it, even the small children.
Being in Residential School was no fun. I thought it was going to be fun. At Christmas time they didn’t give us anything. What my mom sent to us was not even shown. My mom told me that she sent a lot of candies over.
I started rebelling the second year. The second year came after the first year was over and we went home. The second year we came in, we went back to Shubenacadie Residential School and we were playing rugby and everybody was tackling me, just like they were tackling a guy over in the bar. I fought back. In the second year I was sent to see the Priest. He said, “You’re fooling around in school, in class.” I said, “I never fool around in class, I try to learn.” He said, “You’re not learning, you’re fooling around.” “That’s what the Sister said.” And me and Paul Isaac (sp?) were punished for all that. Paul Isaac (sp?) was from Bearhead (ph.) Chapel Island (ph.) And my other friend, Noah, said, “George, just be cool about it, try to take everything in stride.”
If you get out of hand, I don’t know what to tell you.
Q. How were you punished?
A. I was punished with the stick. I hated that dam stick. This one Nun she gave me ten straps on my buttocks. I wouldn’t take it any more. She only gave me 9 of them. I took that stick from her and broke it. I was sent to the Infirmary. The Infirmary had two doors; one nice door for the Infirmary and the other one is inside, it’s like a cell door. You’re not going to get out. There were bars on the window and bars on the door inside, locked from the inside, eh. And the Sister had the key.
And I had to pay all these things which I didn’t do.
My work was alright. And my association with the other boys was alright, except one, Nelson Paul (sp?) I always got into fights with him. That stopped the second year because I beat him up. I didn’t go on trying to kill him or anything, so I just let it go.
I tried to finish my second year. We were playing rugby, eh. I was talking Chibooga (ph.) I was talking to Eugene Paul (sp?). He was from Eskasoni. I told him, “Chibooga (ph.)”. I’ll go. I didn’t know the Sister was right in the doorway and she heard me. She said, “George Francis, come in.” I got strapped again. I didn’t say that inside. It was prohibited inside. But I didn’t know it was even prohibited outside.
Q. Did you have brothers and sisters at the school?
A. I had 1 sister; Shirley.
Q. Did you ever get to see Shirley?
A. No.
Q. Did you miss her?
A. I missed her. After that, a couple of years later, she went to Boston. She got married to Gilbert Julian (ph.) And they had a house in Eskasoni. I visited them every day.
Q. What’s your worst memory of Residential School? Maybe you can tell us your worst memory and then maybe if you have a best memory.
A. Worst memory is the Priest fighting me, eh. The Sister, when I threw that stick in half, they dragged me to the Priest and he told me, “George, tonight we’re going to box.” I was waiting for it until about 8 o’clock, after he beat up Frenchy, Frenchy Bernard (sp?) He was a small guy. He beat him up, you know. His face was all red in blood. And Noah told me, “Okay, he was putting on my gloves, eh, he wasn’t waiting, the Priest wasn’t waiting for if I had gloves on or anything. And there were 2 fellas tightening my hands and Noah told me, “Okay George, pretend that you fall, just pretend, don’t fall right to the floor, but pretend that you tripped and smack him right in the balls.” That’s what he told me. And I did that. The Priest fell right on the bench, the hardwood bench. It was about that wide and about that high (indicating). He had blood all over him. There was blood all over the floor, and after about fifteen minutes I had to wipe the blood off.
That was near the —
That was around I would say about March, potato season. So he never bothered me again. But he says, “I’m keeping an eye on you.” He never bothered me.
I was a farm boy by then.
Q. Did you learn farming at Residential School?
A. Yes.
Q. Can you talk about that a little bit?
A. We went at 5 o’clock in the morning to milk the cows and put those suction things on them. There were about two hundred and fifty cows. The milk went right into the tanks outside. I worked there for about 3 months.
Then I got into a fight. Bill Watts (sp?) came over and threw me on the ground. He threw me about – I wasn’t big then – it must have been about from here to the corner over there (indicating), right under the hay wagon. There were bundles of hay. I watched him walk back across the road and he brought a hay rake. You know them hay rakes that are made of wood? They are about 4 ½ feet wide. He hit me on the top of my head, right over here (indicating), on the side. All the boys were watching: Eugene Paul and Noah Christmas and the other boys. And Eugene said, “George, are you all right?” I couldn’t see. I was blacked out for a couple of seconds. I knew something was wrong because I had never had that before.
A couple of years later, about 2 years later, I started getting epileptic fits. That was the second year later after going to school, from Residential School I got out on June 29th and that was my second year, that was the last year. I would get out and I was alright. I was glad to get out.
Q. What year did you get out?
A. 1952. I stayed from 1951 to 1952. But each summer I go home, eh. They gave us no clothes. I don’t know whose clothes it was.
Q. You had worked on the dairy farm. Was there any other farming at the School?
A. There was a —
You know, when you slice a potato you look for one eye over here and the other eye over there, you split it in half. That’s what we were doing. I know that. It’s something I seen my father do.
Q. So there was a potato farm as well?
A. Yeah. And we had our carrots and turnips. They had everything what we need to eat.
Q. So what was it like going home after that year at Residential School?
A. My father said, “George —“
I told my father about my experiences in Residential School. He said, “I’m going to Brad McCain (ph.)” We’re going there tomorrow. That was going to be Monday. We went there on Monday morning. We got to Brad McCain (ph.) and my father was mad, mad as hell. I never had scars before, on the head, anyway.
About 1953 I started getting epileptic seizures. That was before. 1952. In the summer me and my sister were going to go to a baseball game is Eskasoni. She always told me, “George, hurry up.” That’s when I told her, “you go.” My feet were moving, not by me, I wasn’t moving them, but they were moving. So I said, “There’s something wrong.” I was scared. Geez, I was frightened. When they took me to the doctor the doctor prescribed pills, Dilantin (ph.). He gave me 3 Dilantin (ph.) “Take these”, he said. That was in Sidney. They called it the Marine Hospital.
I fell at the Bingo Hall, right on the steps. So the cops took me in and told me that I was drunk. So I called up Louie Adegny (ph.) who was the Chief and the Hospital Director (ph.) at the same time. He said, “you’re drunk?” “You weren’t drinking last night.” “You weren’t drinking this morning.” So he came over and got me out. He had a lawyer with him. Then he told the cops that if they ever touched me again there would be consequences. “He’s got epilepsy.” Everybody falls with epilepsy. I’ve been suffering with epilepsy for numbers of years.
Q. And the epilepsy is the result of being hit?
— Transcriber’s Note. Recording abruptly ends at this point but continues on the next track.
A. The only good memory I have is when they tore it down.
Q. When did that happen?
A. A couple of years back. They tore it down.
Q. Did you go there the day they tore it down?
A. No. I didn’t want to.
Q. So you were there 1 year?
A. Two years.
Q. Two years. 1951 and 1952.
A. Yeah.
Q. So how old were you in 1952?
A. I was twelve years old.
Q. And why didn’t you go back?
A. My father talked to the Indian Agent, Brad McCain. He had a talk with him and he was mad. When I got that first epileptic fit, holy gawd, they took me to the hospital and took me for check-ups everywhere, even to Halifax over here. So I’ve been having epilepsy for a number of years, just because of a Priest.
I’ll never forget it. But maybe I will, after talking about it like this now, maybe I’ll forget about it.
Q. When we talk about healing, are there any other experiences that happened to you at Residential School that you want to share with us?
A. No.
Q. Okay.
A. Nothing ever bad happened to me, but I heard a lot of kids having problems, eh, small little kids, big boys were after them kids. And they got caught, about fourteen of them.
Q. So what about your healing. Do you go to any healing events or anything. What do you do?
A. I go to every healing event there is. I even talked to the Priest one time in Eskasoni. His name was Father Holly (ph.). I used to talk to a lot of them. But there was another Priest who was a little aggressive. I told him, “you know, he told me that I should be working with him, eh, helping him.” I told him that I was working in the Residential School and nobody gave a dam about me. So why should I help you? You are a different Priest, but you know. But he’s still a Priest. He’s just bossing people around. I’m not your boss.
Q. What would you say to that Priest, the one who hit you on the head, if you saw him today?
A. Today, I’d probably choke him to death, see how it feels, as he choked me. He hit me with the stick and the strap. That only happened about —
The first month I went to school, and it happened again the second year when I went to school again.
At the end of the year when she asked me questions about education, I knew them all. Still they said that I was cheating. I had nothing to write on. Because I was studying. I didn’t want to get into any more trouble.
Q. What about after Residential School. What did you do?
A. After Residential School, I worked as a pulp cutter. I was cutting pulp. I worked for Douglas Denny (sp?) in Eskasoni. We were cutting pulp. I was about nineteen years old.
Q. Were you twelve when you left Residential School?
A. Yes.
Q. What did you do from when you were twelve to nineteen?
A. I went to Eskasoni School. They took me back.
Q. Was that a day school?
A. The Indian day school.
Q. Did you like that better than Residential School?
A. Yeah. It was better. We had more freedom. At recess time you can have conversations in Mi’kmaw with people.
Q. Do you have children. Are you married now?
A. I was married in 1976. We had two boys and two girls. In 1972 my wife went away. She says she was going to get time off for one of the girls, Carla. And she was going over to her grandmother’s place. It’s only about a hundred and fifty feet from us. She never came back. She never came back. I never looked for her. But I heard that she was in Toronto. But still I never looked for her.
Q. What about your daughters. Do you see them still?
A. Yes, I still see them. I have a good relationship with our daughters.
Q. Can you talk to them about your experiences at Residential School?
A. Yeah, I talk with them. They know all about it. Everything there was to know. My memory is a little off, but when I was young my memory was accurate.
Q. Did your daughters have to go to Residential School?
A. No way. I wouldn’t let them. I would die first before letting them. I would kill for them. I would have killed for them.
Just imagine me having fourteen guns in my living room. I like to hunt; rabbit, deer, but not moose.
Q. Before we end are there any final things you would like to say?
A. I wish they never build another Residential School ever. People like me who suffered —
Another thing I say to my children, bring that to me, they’ll do it. They love me that much.
One rebelled against her mother. She lived up here, a couple of years ago, ten years ago. She beat up her mother. She was drunk and she beat her up so dam bad, her face was swollen and she had a broken jaw and black eyes. I didn’t believe it. But I told myself that I had to see to believe it. So I went to where my wife was. She was laying on the floor. Not on the floor, she was laying on the bed. I told her to look at me. She looks at me. “Who did this to you?” Myra (ph.) “Okay”, I told her. Myra is not going to see you any more. I heard about this, this morning about 6 o’clock. I heard about it. The Mounties came in and said that your daughter beat up her mother.
I didn’t give a dam. That’s what they thought. But I did give a dam. I told Myra “never touch your mom”. You got only one mother in this world and one father, remember that. Don’t ever try that trick again. Try to feel sorry for yourself.
She said, “Dad, I was sorry because of you.” “I was mad.” She was drunk.
Q. Do you have any grandchildren?
A. Grandchldren? I’ve got one in Eskasoni. She’s probably in my house right now; Patty (ph.) And Funk’s baby, Thomas, Brandon. And there’s a little girl. I just forgot her name!
Q. Does it make you happy to think they never have to go to Residential School?
A. Yeah. I’m happy.
Q. Thank you very much for coming today. We really appreciate it.
A. Yeah. Residential School really deteriorated my mind. When I get outta here and go home, I’ll be in peace again, and think about what I missed in this conversation.
What I missed I’ll write it down and send it to you. Or I’ll give it to Laurie and she can bring it over to you.
Q. That would be good. The other thing you can do is if there are other things you remember, there are openings in the audio interviews. You can go and have another audio interview after as well, if there are other things you want to say after. But if you write them down, that would be great. You can send them and we’ll get them.
A. Writing them down is a perfect expression, writing them down.
Q. Yes.
A. So I’ll know what I’m saying and what I’m going to say in a couple of seconds, I’ll know, because I’m going to write them down.
Q. Okay.
A. It’s better to write them down than say it again. Sometimes, like before, a lot of information came into my head and some things I didn’t want to say, some things I forgot to say, and you know —
Q. Are there any final things right now that you remember?
A. I was sorry I never saw my parents visit me, or my uncle Rod who came to visit me. He came from Eskasoni to Residential School just to be kicked out. He told me that Priest over there, what’s his name, I told him I don’t hurt a Priest now, but he got tangled up, mixed up somewhere.
I’ll get it. Don’t worry.
Q. That wasn’t important. Well, thank you for coming today.
A. It’s not important anyway.
Q. No. And you did a great job. You shared a lot of things with us.
A. His name was Father Mackie (sp?)
Q. Okay.
A. Father Mackie. That was the guy that wanted to box me. I had a couple of coaches, two coaches; Paul Isaac from Chapel Island, and Noel Christmas. Noel Christmas and Paul Isaac told me, “Take him in the balls.” So I did, and I did it hard. I did just what they told me. That was the end of my experience in the Residential School.
Q. That’s good.
A. I told my father about it and he freaked out, eh. “You hit a Priest!” You’ll go to hell for that. And I told him, “Well, if we did go we’ll probably be together in hell!” (Laughter) He wasn’t laughing. Today’s Priests wouldn’t do it. Fight children. It was illegal in the nineteen fifties. Because I worked in the jail cell (ph.) in Eskasoni. And when the Commissioner came down I asked him about it. Was it illegal in 1950 to fight under-age kids? He said, “Yeah.” I said, “Why in the hell didn’t you visit those Residential School in Shubenacadie on a monthly basis?” They were beaten. They were beaten by sticks. We were treated more like animals instead of people. I wish he could hear me today.
He’s probably waiting for me.
Q. Thank you very much.
— End of Interview
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