THE INTERVIEWER: We’ll start with getting you to say your name and then spelling it so we can have it on video.
RITA WATCHESTON: My name is Rita Watcheston.
Q. Can you spell that, please?
A. W-a-t-c-h-e-s-t-o-n.
Q. Where are you from, Rita?
A. I’m from Ochapaways (ph.) Reserve, north of Whitewood.
Q. That’s in Saskatchewan?
A. Yeah.
Q. Which Residential School did you attend?
A. I went to Lebret Residential School.
Q. How many years were you there?
A. I was there from 1949 to 1959.
Q. Ten years!
How old were you when you first went in?
A. I must have been about 6, I guess, maybe 5 going on 6. I don’t really remember. But I was very young.
Q. Do you remember why it was you had to go to Residential School?
A. Well, my father was looking after us. My mother passed away around that time. They said that she died in 1949, so it must have been right after that. I really don’t know. I never did want to ask my dad about it.
Q. Do you remember your first day?
A. My first day? Well, I’ll tell you how it started.
We were very poor. We never had clothes or anything. Then that one morning my dad picked us up and we went shopping. We all got a new set of clothes. My brother, me, and my sister Shirley. She’s dead now. She passed away.
We got home and early the next morning he woke us up and we had to take a bath and we had to put on these new clothes. We didn’t know what was happening. All of a sudden a big black car pulled up and they told us to get in the back seat. We had no luggage; nothing. I remember we put my little sister in the middle and me and my brother sat on each side. There were 2 Oblate Fathers there with black cassocks, those black robes. I don’t know what they call them. We said goodbye. I don’t even remember if my dad kissed us goodbye or anything, and away we went.
We pulled up to this big building. It was big to me at that time. They took my brother away and I never saw my brother for a while after that. Me and my little sister went to the girls’ side. My sister was very young. I think she was only about 3 years old. So for years we stayed there. My little sister was the baby of the school. She never had to go to school because she was just a little baby girl. She was the Nun’s —
She was the baby of the school.
Of course they bathed us and they put a bunch of coal oil in our hair and then some white powder. Then they cut our hair. And that’s where we stayed. We went to school there. We hardly ever went home because I guess we had no mother. That’s where I stayed for ten years.
— Speaker overcome with emotion
I learned how to sew at a very early age. I must have been about eleven years old when I learned how to sew. Today I’m a sewer, I’m a seamstress. I can sew anything. Just name it and I can sew it. I mostly make star blankets.
So I stayed there and I never heard from my father. I never knew where he was. Once in a while he would send us a dollar and we would each have a quarter, me and my sister, and my brother would get fifty cents. That’s how we stayed. It was a really lonely life.
I used to sit by the window and look at the gate and watch for my dad to come and he never ever came. I would watch for him. Finally I gave up and I grew up to be a very wicked person. I thought to myself, “Wait until I get big, boy, I’m going to beat up my dad.”
This all happened. I went to school and finally I got out of school in 1960 and right away I got married. I had a girl in 1961. I was a very wicked person, drinking and drinking. I drank for a lot of years. I was really abusive to my kids. But I’ve been sober now for thirty years.
Q. When did you start your healing journey? When did things change for you?
A. After I sobered up in 1979, or ’78, but during all those times I lost a sister to cancer. I lost my husband. He committed suicide and I was left with 7 kids to raise.
Q. What about your relationship with your father after Residential School?
A. After I left Residential School I came home for a little while and I just got married right away.
I still had 2 sisters. When we went to school in Lebret I had a little sister. She was a baby. Her name was Irene. So my grandmother raised her. I remember coming home maybe a few times, 2 or 3, and we ended up at my grandmother’s place. She kind of looked after us for maybe a weekend or on a Saturday night and then we had to go back to school on a Sunday.
I did end up beating my dad.
I must have had about 6 children and I was drinking and I was a very wicked drunk.
I ended up beating up my dad. My dad is dead now. He got married again. I have some half sisters and half brothers.
Q. What was a typical day like in Residential School?
A. In Lebret it was like this: Get up, brush your teeth —
It was like a drill. They drilled that into me for ten years. I done the same thing, the same things. Get up in the morning. Wash up. Go downstairs. Eat. Do your chore. Go to school. Dinner.
And we had to make our bed perfect. The Nun would be standing there. Everything always had to be so perfect.
After I got married I tried to do that to my children. I tried to instill in them that everything had to be perfect. So that’s why I was a real angry and mean mother.
— Speaker overcome with emotion
A. It hurts me to talk about this. I don’t know when I’ll ever be healed. I’m getting old and I have diabetes. I don’t know how long I’ll be living. It’s really hard on me to talk about these things. I know it has to come out. I know that’s the only way I’m going to be really a survivor, I guess.
Q. Have you shared your story with your children?
A. Yes, lots of times. My daughter went to the University of Regina. She took Social Work and she interviewed me, but it seemed to be easier with my daughter. She interviewed me. She taped me and she wrote it down. She went in front of her class and she spoke to 350 students. She talked to them for an hour about my story.
After she finished she got a standing ovation. There wasn’t a dry eye in all the students that she talked to. So every day I try —
I don’t see my grandchildren that often. I have eighteen grandchildren. I talk to them whenever we are driving in the car, or something and I tell them about how lucky they are. Those kids have everything in their homes. I always tell them I never even had a doll. I just had a piece of wood for a doll and that’s what we would wrap up and carry around.
My grandchildren have everything. I always tell them every day how lucky they are. We have triplets in our family and those crazy little boys each have a cell. Geez.
Q. Things are different, that’s for sure.
Why do you think it’s important for you to share your story with your family and other people?
A. Because they have to know about it. They have to realize what we went through and how I think maybe that their life is easy today compared to the way I grew up with fear, fear of those Nuns and being strict.
For years after I got married I made my bed every morning perfectly because it was drilled in me, right. Now for the past 6 years I haven’t even been making my bed. I always look at it and I think, “No, I can’t make my bed today!” So some of that is still drilled in me. I noticed it myself. It just comes automatically sometimes.
Q. You have been able to let some of it go?
A. I’ve been able to let some of it go. I have been going to different Workshops and different Residential School conferences.
Q. Was it a Catholic School?
A. It was a Catholic School.
Q. Today do you practice Catholicism?
A. No, I don’t. I just stick to my Indian culture and I try to teach my children about that, too. They all seem to know. I take them each in turn to a Rain Dance or to a Sun Dance and they know what it is to go to a feast.
Q. So your relationship with them now, is it better than it was?
A. Yeah, with the grand kids. With my children sometimes it’s good and most of the time it’s not good. I think they blame me for the way I was a mother when they were growing up. But I get along real good with my grandchildren.
Q. Are there any memories that really stand out in your mind that you might want to share about your time at Residential School?
A. Every evening after supper we would all go for walks, or on a Saturday we would go for a walk. There were about ten of us. We usually walked in two’s or three’s, eh. We were walking down the tracks and we kept walking and walking. Finally we looked back, “Hey, there’s nobody coming behind us.” So finally we all went walking back real fast back to the school. When we got there Sister met us right at the gate. “Right upstairs”, she told us. She whipped us with a big strap about this long (indicating), about 2 feet long and about an inch thick and about 3 inches wide. We all had to lie with our pants pulled down and our dress pulled up and she gave us each ten straps. That’s about the only one that stands out.
I got different lickings before for little things. Maybe speaking —
I remember one time we were all teasing each other and we were all saying tansee (ph.), eh, and we all had to go up and get strapped. Just little things like that. I don’t think we were that bad.
Q. Speaking your language was wrong?
A. Yeah. Mostly language.
Q. So you said you had a younger sister there with you. Right?
A. Yeah.
Q. You were able to stay together?
A. No, no. She was in the Small girls and I was in the Medium girls, and by the time she got to the Medium girls I was in the Big girls.
In the meantime my other little sister was of age and she came to school. Her name is Irene. She lives in Calgary. Shirley passed away in 1995.
Q. How is your relationship with your siblings?
A. Good. I sort of thought I had to look after them after we got out of school. So maybe that’s why I got married so young. I was seventeen or eighteen when I got married.
Q. Did your husband go to Residential School?
A. No.
Q. Did your father or mother?
A. My mother did. I’m sure my mother did, but I don’t know if my dad did. I never bothered to ask.
Q. Is there anything more that you want to share?
A. No, that’s about it. Just that I learned to be clean. It wasn’t all bad. There were some good parts in it. I learned to sew anyway, and that’s what I do now, besides my pension.
Q. Did you ever go back?
A. To where?
Q. To the school. Did you ever visit afterward?
A. Yeah, I went back. One of my children was in school there. I just walked around looking and it seemed so small, a little small school compared to when I was there. It seemed like it was such a big place.
That’s about it. I just went back to visit once or twice.
Q. You said your daughter was there?
A. My daughter Cheryl was there but she didn’t stay long. I think she only stayed about a month.
Q. All right. Is there anything else?
A. No, that’s about it. It was just ordinary. Every day the same thing. Get up. Eat. Go to class. Go to church. Kneel down. I never try to kneel down any more. I had enough of kneeling down for ten years.
Q. So now today where you are in your life right now, thinking about your healing journey, how do you feel about where you are right now in your life?
A. I feel like it’s never going to end. I feel like when is it going to end, maybe only when I die, you know. I don’t know. It’s hard to even talk about it.
Q. But you have to hope?
A. I don’t know how much years I have left because my kidneys are failing from my diabetes.
Q. I wish you the best. Thank you for your time.
A. Okay. Thank you.
I was really nervous to come here.
Q. You did very well.
— End of Interview