Donna Axe Running Rabbit- Finally I Got Fed Up
On the second floor, that was our room. That was juniors, that was junior girls. I slept on top, we had bunk beds, and my late sister Jenny slept on the bottom. I would whisper to my sister when we go to bed, “go use the bathroom” so that way she would not get strapped, so she does go. But, I don’t know, other times she forgets to go use it and she would pee in bed. I would wake up during the night to hear areal hard slap from that Mrs. Maguire to Jenny. I would jump off the bunk bed and I would grab Jenny as she was crying loudly, and again I would tell Annie Maguire that I would tell my mother. She would just look at me. There was a lot of abuse in there, hitting. But I never witnessed anything about sexual abuse or anything like that.
There was one in there, one supervisor her name was Miss Nash. I remember her she was a big lady beautiful lady; she was very kind to us. She was from BC, I think she was from BC. She would tell us about Annie, that she was a mean person and all. And that she would be right in there with Mr. Brown and then we would tell Mrs. Nash, “how come she is doing that why, why does she have to listen?”
She said, “that white lady, we try and talk to her to say not to listen to Mr. Brown, but Mr. Brown must tell her what to do. To do this and that to the students” and its always Annie.. it’s always Annie. I was not scared of her at that time [laughs]. But I was scared for the rest and finally I got fed up, I think when I was nine years old. I started to run away from here. A friend of mine, her name was Daphne Black Horse… I would run away from here with her. Daphne was scared of them because Annie would be yelling our names very loud and she would be using the F word, that “we should f***ing get back here to the boarding school!” Then we come back, and we would get strapped and again we would get hit on the head with her knuckles, pulling our hair, and our ears… pulling our ears, holding our ears right up to the room.
And another thing about at that time me and Daphne, we never, never ever got Christmas gifts. Never ever, till it closed because it was always Annie. That’s all I can remember…
– Donna Axe Running Rabbit
Notes:
Oral interview with Donna Axe Running Rabbit. Conducted, translated, and transcribed by Angeline Ayoungman. Old Sun Community College, April 4, 2022.
