Dad came again and took me to Pictou Landing. The home there was beautiful. The lady of the house I learned later was a cousin, her husband a nice man who made axe handles, and the son they had was older than I. He was nice enough to me but ignored me most of the time. Then one night while Mary, the foster mother, and I were sitting on the floor watching her husband whittling an axe handle we heard a door opening in the other room. The man put the axe handle down, went into the other room and closed the door. Later I heard the sound of severe beating. Not seeing that particular son again until many, many years later, I had often wanted to ask why he used to receive these severe beatings. For my part, I feared I would get a beating if I did not behave exactly as they wanted. I tried to do what I was told, no matter how unusual I thought the request was.
From that time I also remember once looking into a class room with another girl. We were told to come in and sit down. Very soon we were given crochet needles and shown how to crochet a tarn. The tarn I made I took home and showed it to my foster mother. Another thing I remember is going to a particular house and a man on crutches used to teach us Indian prayers. Now I wonder if I had stayed there would I know Indian prayers today.
Then Dad came and placed me in another home. I don’t remember what discussions took place but suddenly I was always in another home. I remember one place where the old lady who took care of me was cross and swore a lot. She swore at everybody and cursed a lot, but I remember she was kind and gentle to me. One time I told her I was not feeling well. She told me to go to bed and stay put. My bed was a straw bed on the floor with a quilt and a lot of old coats. I stayed under the blanket with my head covered, the way I was told, ‘not even to peek at the window.’ Finally I was nauseated and ran to the bucket I was supposed to use. The vomiting produced something like a long white worm, and I thought I was going to die for sure. The next day I was covered with measles and from then on I got better with each passing day.
Once while I was with this lady I had a swollen lump on the right side of my neck. She took me to a doctor and I was supposed to enter hospital a day later. However, she had a wedding of one of her relatives in the community to attend, so she dressed me up pretty but told me to stay out of sight. Now that is hard to do at a wedding, so I was oohl’d and aahl’d, ‘you poor child,’ all evening. That poor lady never heard the end of it all her life. She was offensive to others but good to me. The only thing she could not control was the hate of one of her sons for me. The man just didn’t like to see me sitting across from him at the table, so he ordered me to sit on the second step of the doorway for all my meals. One of my chores was taking care of the sick husband, emptying his spittoon, tidying his bed, giving help with his meals. I remember he ate good meals and sometimes he would give me a porkchop or a potato and some pie. I did not mind the work, though I was only eight years old.
In midsummer the lady and I went to Heatherton, Nova Scotia, for St. Ann’s Mission. In the home we stayed I slept with a lot of other children. In the morning two old women were talking about somebody keeping them awake all night “knocking.” Then there was a knock on the door; a man asked for my foster mother. He said; “I am sorry to bring you bad news.” My foster mother crossed herself and immediately rushed to go home. When we came home, her husband was in a coffin, and the part I remember is that he had like a diaper wrapped from his chin to the top of his head. I was told to pay my respects and do not remember what I did; not too long after that I ended up at another place.
I remember when I arrived there the man of the house told me to take a chair and to sit beside him at the table. I sat beside him from that day forward; I always grabbed that particular chair and made sure I sat on that one. I imagine he did not like seeing me eat on the second step at the other place. I loved all the different mothers I had, and worked hard at being accepted as a good girl. But the places I liked did not last long; pretty soon I would be placed in another home. The last home, in Millbrook Reservation, Nova Scotia, was the home I loved the most of all. The mom was good to me, the dad was strict but tolerant.
I imagine it is the same in every culture. Myself, when I became a foster mother to two foster children, I made sure they didn’t feel any different from my own. A lot of hugs and kisses and ‘wkis,’ ‘son,’ I knew would mean a lot to those boys. To this day I am ‘mom’ to each one. I tried to express the mothering I would have liked in my time.
Finally, when I was nine I got to live with my dad. That year was the happiest I have ever known. The extreme poverty meant nothing to me; the idea of my family meant something good and secure. My two brothers, Soln (Charlie) and Roddie, and my older sister Annabel, who grew up too fast after Mom died, did their best to take care of me. It was not the best of care, but the closeness stayed with us always.
Soln, my oldest brother from the same mother, was eleven years older than I. He was very protective of me, I being the mta’ksn (baby) in the family. He was a good man, the loving family member who kept the younger siblings in line. He was the one I went to for any problem I had, his wise words so much like Dad’s. Soln Josie, as everybody knew him, was a soft-spoken individual who cared for people, like a father to everybody. He died in January 1981, two months after Roddie disappeared on November 26, 1980 in Whycocomagh. Roddie was eight years older than I, a happy-go-lucky guy who never married and I regret to this day his never having children; I would love them like Soln’s kids. Roddie was the one who went into the army in 1942 after Dad died and sent me an allotment by the army pension to Oxford where I was living at the time. I was ten, and supposed to receive twelve dollars a month, but I received fifteen instead. He tried to help me in his own way, the only way he knew how. I loved my two brothers very much.
The last time they came to Eskasoni was before Roddie disappeared, and as they came down the few steps to my basement kitchen, Soln was following Roddie and his words were, “Roddie, you are slow like a mikjij!” I asked, “What is a mikjij?” “A turtle,” I was told. Then Roddie disappeared not too long after. His body was found on Skye Mountain near Whycocomagh in 1988. The two brothers who were so close to each other and to me died two months apart. Matt, our other brother, was a loner, somebody whom we saw periodically, just a little while and gone again before we knew it. He was in the Canadian Army and in the U.S. Air Force in later years, and after his discharge he worked at the Boston Indian Council right up to the time he died in 1973. I never got to know him because he left Whycocomagh when he was six years old and went abroad later.
I remember my first Christmas with my family, the boys told me to write down what I wanted. The list was long, even a bed for a doll and a cupboard for dishes. I hung up my stocking and next morning the whole family looked on as I exclaimed over every gift. Though the bed and cupboard were made of shingles, they were like treasures to me, and the doll wet when I fed her! The time spent that Christmas lingers to this day; but it had to end, a time so precious we hold on to it in memory.
Soon new sneakers and a dress were purchased for me by the boys; the getting ready for Easter was on. Though the dress may have cost ninety-eight cents, I though it and the sneakers were the best in the world. The day was spent with Dad all day, with a closeness like I may have sensed he could go at any time. The Wednesday after Easter my dad felt cold and couldn’t seem to get warm. Finally he was taken to the hospital. That Friday we were summoned to his bedside at the hospital. Annabel and I went with Chief Joe Julian and I held my father’s cold hand as he told my sister what to do with me. I remember “Muk kwe’ji li’ewij Oxford. Do not let your sister go to Oxford.” But that is exactly what happened after he died. His wishes were not carried out and I ended up in Oxford, Nova Scotia.
The stay there was alright at first but later on I saw liquor close-up for the first time. I even got to learn how to make it. I became the best twelve-year-old homebrew maker in Cumberland County between 1942 and 1944. The time there was not all bad, a learning experience; it is the place my first book, The Poe
ms of Rita Joe, is about.
The first year there was no school, but I went to school in 1943; this was the time I found out how non-Indians act towards Natives. It depended on us, too: if I acted nice towards the white girls, I would be accepted as one of them. As long as I was at school I was one of them, but into their homes I was not permitted, nor to get too close to them. The learning experience of belonging to an alien nation made a permanent impression on me at that time, and the peaceful confrontation is what I still use today.
A lasting impression of a teacher at that time in Oxford Junction also remains in my mind. She was strict but kind. I still have a memory of her standing near my home, watching, as I pulled a sleigh full of wood for therapy, as I look at it today. It was Christmas Day, and my stocking and the Christmas tree I had stood on a chair had yielded nothing. I cried my tears until there were no more, then spent time getting wood. My foster parents were away and I was alone, oh, so alone! On one of my dozen trips the teacher was standing there with a box in her hand. “Santa had lost his way,” she said. I did not believe her but accepted the gift she handed me. The people in the community may have known what was going on, their gossip may have brought sympathy for me.
A time finally arrived when I felt I had to get away from that place, that my father did not want me to stay. I have felt up to this day that my dad in spirit had something to do with my leaving. I wrote a letter to the Indian Agent in Shubenacadie, H.C. Rice, to please come on a Wednesday to take me to the Indian Residential School. That particular day was the day the lady of the house would be away picking mayflowers. The Indian agent kept his promise and came on a Wednesday. I had forgotten about the letter and had gone to school, and at recess time we saw a car arriving in the driveway. A tall Mountie stepped out of the car along with a man in a business suit. The children at the school and I all looked at each other, asking “Who broke a window?” “What did we do wrong?” Then we heard my name and with a thumping heart I ran over to my teacher, the man with the Mountie looking at me. The man put his arm around my shoulder. “Do you know who I am? I am Mr. Rice,” he announced. I was fit to be tied, I was so excited.
The trip to Shubenacadie did not take long. We stopped in Truro and he bought me a dinner, with a chocolate bar for dessert. Then he went off somewhere to phone ahead that we would arrive soon. The school looked like a castle: the ornamented door, the shiny waxed floors, pictures on the wall. The nuns were kind. The priest was from Cumberland County; the idea that we were both from Cumberland County cemented our friendship. Father Brown was a kind and gentle man; the only time I heard him raise his voice was when he was angry that one of the girls had been severely beaten. The four years I spent at the school were a memorable time. Sometimes when I say that a lot of people are surprised because of the negative things one hears about the place. Oh yes – I have had some negative experiences, but I do not like to think of the negative things if I can help it. A positive outlook that I have worked on for so long now turns me off from the negative. I look for the good and it is easy to find if you look for it. For instance, I had a friend, a nun that I worked with in the laundry. She was the one giving me inspiration. Every morning before our chores she would dig in the deep pocket of her habit and give me a hard candy or some other small gift. I looked forward to her digging in her pocket to see what she would produce next. It is like the trinkets and beads story, only it meant something to her as well as me.
When I left when I was sixteen I cried at first on the train. I looked at the place that had been my foster home for four years. I also felt freedom; I was finally grown up and nobody would ever hurt me again. Nobody was ever going to tell me when to eat, wash, go to bed or even go to the bathroom. The spiritual part of my life was going to be my own doing, not when I was told. If I am going to commit a sin I am going to commit a sin with my own free will and boy, did I rebel! The confinement of will had been going on so long that I just cried until the school was out of sight, then giggled to my heart’s content. I was finally free! The school had been a regimented schedule of monotony. I made a vow to myself that nobody was going to tell me what to do again.
The bubble burst as soon as I arrived at the Halifax Infirmary, where I had my first job. The place was run by nuns and right away I did as I was told, working as hard as I could. My first pay was my own, nobody could take it, my own! The Indian girls were friendly, the others okay. I tried not to step on toes; friendly atmosphere was important, so the girls created just that.
One day I received a letter from a nun at the Residential School asking me to go to speak to the next group of graduates. I showed the letter to the other Indian girls. “Look at what they want me to do, ‘a ba’d womani’sk’ — to talk to the girls, poor things,” I said and laughed out loud. The laugh sounded hollow to my ears.
I went to see the girls, but in my own time, and in my own language explaining the hardships with the majority. I pitied them because they held so much hope when they got out of school. I knew the losing game, with little education and being a minority.
I finally left the Halifax Infirmary and tried the restaurant trade, washing dishes, waiting on tables, collecting tips and hoping for a better tomorrow. Once in awhile I would receive letters from my brother Matt in Boston. He spoke about the good jobs there, but my desire to better myself was rejected by my sister Annabel. “You are too young to go there,” she would say. I bided my time and tried to put money together for my trip to Boston.
The day finally arrived. I packed my cardboard suitcase with my best clothes all ironed and neat. The customs officer at the border made a mess of them. I felt let down but then I felt better again because the man in the next aisle had a harder time with documentation than I had. My Indian status card earned me critical appraisal but also reluctant okay in everything I dealt with. My heart and spirit were hanging by a thread as I passed the countryside, realizing I was leaving Canada and the familiar territory I had always known.
On arriving in Boston in the morning, I tried to buy a newspaper with Canadian money; nobody would take it. My country isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, I thought to myself, they won’t even take the money! Finally I took a taxi and told the driver to take me to the nearest bank. How stupid I was — the bank was just around the corner. I ran inside telling the clerk to hurry with the exchange — the meter was running. The exchange was all of twelve dollars. But the letdown did not last long. I saw a policeman and asked for directions to the place on the paper I had circled with a pencil, and he pointed in a certain direction. I knew the place would cost me a dollar for a room. I wanted to shower and make myself presentable and go to the employment agency. I was lucky at the agency, for the woman must have pitied me when I announced I had just arrived from Canada that morning. I asked for a job where I would also have a room and meals. The job I got was at a private hospital in the Beacon Hill district. My duties were to clean rooms, hallways, kitchen, set up trays or any chore the supervisor asked me to do. Hours were from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m.; the rest of the time my own. I never knew the difference about Beacon Hill or anywhere, I was just happy to be able to stand on my own two feet. I was shown what my duties were. The room in the residence was beautiful. The sun’s rays mirrored my mood, exposing it to the woman who was showing me the room.
The rest of the day was mine. I didn’t have to start work until the next day. The few dollars I had left must last until payday, so if I wanted to go anywhere I had to walk. I wanted to look for Matt at 31 Upton St. I thought it safe to ask a policeman: “Where is 31 Upton, Sir?” “That is on the South Side.” The streets there did not look as clean as where I worked. But the streets did not matter — I was looking for Matt. At the last address he wrote, I saw a man coming out of a building. “Sir, do you know Matthew Bernard?” I asked. “Oh, you mean the professor,” he answered. “I do not know what you mean,” I replied. “That is the nickname we have given him. Go into the basement part of the building and ask the people there.” I knocked on a doo
r, a woman answered. “I’m looking for Matt.” “He left yesterday on a plane for Canada,” she said. I told her I had just arrived from Canada — we had passed each other by air and land. “Why do you call my brother a professor?” “He uses high-falutin words,” a man answered. I had to learn all about my brother from them, never having had much contact since he came out of Shubenacadie School. I was glad to meet my people, the camaraderie was instant. I tried to converse in Micmac, and they made fun of my mispronunciation of words. I laughed along with them, happy to find friends.
Finally the woman of the house came back home from work. “Oh my God,” I thought, “she is pregnant and working!” Then I realized that I was in the same situation, and I did not feel so bad.
They explained that buses run only at a certain time. “Let me take you home,” a young Indian offered. A happy exchange of words followed for me to visit often. I was happy to be with a person of my own age. We walked from the bus stop to the hospital. I invited him into the parlour, we talked awhile and he left. I lay on my bed thinking of him. I wished I had met him before my pregnancy, and wondered how long I would last on the job.
The next day I worked hard, eager to please. The rest of the time I spent trying to make friends, and each free day I spent the time with them on the South Side. Eventually, I became noticeable, still trying to hide my condition in loose clothes. An idea developed: I could work babysitting, for somebody of my own people. Sure enough, I found work babysitting with a couple I had met earlier. My room was smaller than the one I had left at the hospital, but the five-year-old was easy to look after.
The Mi'kmaq Anthology Page 23