After searching for 70 years, Pimicikamak family finds graves of relatives taken to residential school - Action News
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Manitoba

After searching for 70 years, Pimicikamak family finds graves of relatives taken to residential school

A woman went on a quest to find out where her aunts were buried to fulfill her grandmother's dying wish.

Betsy Oniske says she was asked by her late grandmother to find where her 3 aunts were buried

Betsy Oniske says she and her family spent 70 years looking for the burial sites of her three aunts who were taken away to residential school in the 1930s. (Ethan Butterfield/CBC)

After 70 years of searching, a Cree family finally knows where three of their relatives were buried after they were taken from theirFirst Nation in northern Manitobaand forced to attend residential school.

In September, on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, Betsy Oniskeand her family gave her three late aunties a proper burial. Oniske, 67, carried dirt from where their final resting places places across the province that were once unknown to her family and put them in three tiny wooden boxes, each marked with a flower on top.

At her grandmother's resting place in Pimicikamak, the familydug a small hole, justfour feet by four feet wide and two feet deep. They laythe boxes in the hole and offered a prayer. In Oniske's mind, her aunts were returning home to their mother, where they belong.

"My grandma would have been very, very, very happy," said Oniske. "My granny always talked about her three daughters who never made it back to their own community in Cross Lake.

"Their bodies never returned.... I didn't know what she was talking about until I got older."

Oniske combs through her aunts' historical records. It's taken years of research for her to find where they were buried. Today, she says her family is still figuring out how to hold the church and federal government accountable. (Ethan Butterfield/CBC)

Oniske says she and her family spent 70 years looking for the burial sites of her three aunts: Betsey, Isobeland Nora Osborne, who were taken away to residential school in the 1930s.

With the help of an archivist, she found their records but not without roadblocks and reliving a painful history. To this day, Oniske is still trying to mark one of her aunt's graves and she says the family isfar from getting the accountability they seek.

Marking their graves

Oniske said she was asked to find her aunts' graves 20 years agoby her grandmother, Sarah Jane Osborne, before she passed away and in 2020, she succeeded.

Her research revealed which cemeteries they were buried in, but not their precise location within the cemeteries. This year, Oniske went on a journey to visit each one of her aunties' gravesites to find out exactly where their bodies were laid to rest. Of the three, only one Nora's was marked with a name.

Through searching the Anglican Church archives, they discovered Isobel and Nora were buried in the Mapleton Cemetery of St. Clements Churchin St. Andrews, Man.

Oniske discovered Betsey was buried in the Riverside Catholic Cemetery in The Pas.

Oniske and her family planted homemade crosses for her aunts next to her grandmother's grave in Pimicikamak. On Sept. 30, she held a burial ceremony to reunite them with her grandmother where they belong, she said. (Submitted by William Osborne)

When she visited The Pas, she asked the Our Lady of The Sacred Heart Cathedral to mark Betsey's grave.

"The father they told us it was in row five, plot 13, and we said there's nothing there, no name," she said.

"I said I need the Catholic Church to put a marker on my auntie's gravesite. So that's what they did, they put a marker on it," said Oniske. "They sent me a picture. I was happy with that."

Oniske says her next step is to mark Isobel's grave. She was told by a caretaker at the St Clements Church that Isobel's records exist at the Gilbart Funeral Home in Selkirk and she'll be writing them a letter to find out exactly where Isobel was buried in the cemetery, she said.

A picture of Sarah Jane, Oniske's grandmother, who asked her to find out where her aunts were buried as a dying wish. (Submitted by William Osborne)

"For Isobel's grave, there's still no marker," said Oniske. "They just showed us where the grave was, but the grave is all grown in."

Process riddled with barriers

The family started their record search in 2018when a cousin, William Osborne, asked his friend Anne Lindsay, an archivist and postdoctoral fellow at the University of Winnipeg, to help his family.

"I know how hard it is. Even if you're educated, even if you're a lawyer, it doesn't matter. It's difficult because it's technical and it's so hard to go through," William said.

"A process of permissions. That's what they call red tape."

Lindsay, who specializes in records relating to Indigenous peopleparticularly involving residential schools and Indian hospitalssaid a barrier for the family was having poor internet connection in the north.

William Osborne stands next to a monument honouring survivors of the MacKay Residential School, which he attended in 1974. In 2018, William asked for his friend Anne Lindsay's help in finding the historical records of his aunts. (Submitted by William Osborne)

She helped them navigate filling out forms and other bureaucratic processes in requesting documents.

They pulled records from church archives, school files from Library and Archives Canada and vital statistics from Manitoba. Their request to vital statistics took a month to receive documents, but Lindsay said it can take up to a year.

"A lot of times, being able to go on to the next step requires that you have the information from the previous step and so the delays with the vital statistics records in particular are problematic," said Lindsay.

They documented their search in an essay for the University of Manitoba calledThe Three Sisters,written by Lindsay and William.

A picture of Charlie Osborne, William's late father. Charlie also wanted to find out where the sisters were buried and asked his eldest son, Jackson, to do it. (Submitted by William Osborne)

"It was heartwarming," Lindsay said. "The outcome in this case was about as good as I've ever seen. [For] lots of families, there will be a space they can't bridge."

Two sisters sent to hospital and sanitorium

Their research found two of the girls were sent to a hospital and sanitorium after attending residential school.

Nora was discharged from the Norway House Indian Residential School, which was operated by the United Church,at the age of 15to a mental hospital, for what was described as a "mental breakdown" in her records.

Betsey's records show that she entered the Cross Lake Indian Residential School in 1939, when she was eight. She was later sent to the Clearwater Lake Sanitorium in the Pas,where she died.

This Cross Lake school photo of Betsey Osborne was found by archivist Anne Lindsay. It was given by the Archdiocese of Keewatin-The Pas to the St. Boniface Historical Society. (St. Boniface Historical Society)

According to their death certificates, all three sisters died of tuberculosis, Lindsay said.

Lindsay says historical research is revealing that in the 1930s and '40s, municipal, provincial and federal hospitals played a greater role in providing health care to children forced to attend residential school than anticipated.

"It makes the search for families that much more complicated because now we have a whole other layer of potential places that somebody could end up in and a whole different kind of health records bureaucracy that they have to be able to navigate," she said.

A picture of the Norway House Indian Residential School, which Nora was forced to attend. According to the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, the school was opened from 1899 to 1967. (Library and Archives Canada)

'Small start' to healing

On Sept. 30, at the ceremony to honour their aunties, William said he saw eagles whistling in the sky.

"It's a beautiful thing," he said. "We didn't use the shovel to cover the graves. We used our hands. I asked them to cover it up with their bare hands," he said.

"To have a proper burial for them, to bring them back to us," said Oniske.

A display set up by Oniske and William for the burial ceremony. The three boxes hold dirt from their aunts' graves. (Submitted by William Osborne)

"It was just very emotional.... Some of my cousins, they were happy and crying. To be the strongest, I didn't want to cry. I cried later on," she said.

"We have a long way to go in terms of healing," said William. "But this is a small start."

70 year search: Family finds graves of relatives taken to residential school

2 years ago
Duration 2:29
After 70 years of searching, a Cree family finally knows where three of their relatives were buried after they were taken from their First Nation in northern Manitoba and forced to attend residential school.

Support is available for anyone affected by their experience at residential schools or by the latest reports.

A national Indian Residential School Crisis Line has been set up to provide support for former students and those affected. People can access emotional and crisis referral services by calling the 24-hour national crisis line: 1-866-925-4419.

Mental health counselling and crisis support is also available 24 hours a day, seven days a week through the Hope for Wellness hotline at 1-855-242-3310 or by online chat at www.hopeforwellness.ca.