Digitally Preserving Former Indian Residential Schools in Alberta

Tag: Girls playroom

Eileen Black- I was so Sick

Then they took me out and I was brought to the hospital, the Blackfoot Indian hospital and here I had, it was, it was a kidney infection. I almost died from it

Isabell Muldoe- There Were Many Rules

Of course, there were many rules. We learned from the others, or we learn by the mistakes that we made, while we were there, and we got punished.  I don’t know if the students that were there already, who knew the rules already, might have enjoyed watching us suffer being punished because we didn’t know the rules… but, we weren’t, the rules weren’t shared.

Margaret Cardinal- Herded Off to the Showers

I just want to talk about the hair thing again, and how it was very hard to… I can still feel the hair being cut on my head, on my head… and my head being shaved and having to be herded off to the showers and being scrubbed. When I got older, I was also […]

Rachel First Rider- The Bad Ones

This one teacher would grab the back our necks and twist the skin, she hurt us so much. Or the ruler, she would hit us on the fingers. These are the bad ones who treated us bad, white men, white ladies… how badly they abused us when we lived here at the school.

Vivian Rose Brass- The Road Home

I’d wait for all the footsteps that go upstairs. It was time for bedtime. As soon as I hear the end, I just run to that door in the playroom, and I just run.

Yvonne Stimson- Rainy Day Spent Inside

The big girls started batting around then when I walked by, a girl batted. She hit me with the bat. As I was lying there, the supervisor finally noticed. They took me to what they called the dispensary.

Rosemary Red Gun- Beaten with a Stick

He hit me with it on my arm and I thought, “there he finished hitting me.” But he hit me again on the same arm, and then, one after the other one, he kept on hitting me and then my back. I don’t know how many times he hit me with the stick on my back.