Session #7
Finding James and Elizabeth
(Note: The following is an excerpt from a high school and university course outline titled, ‘A Mile in our Moccasins’, a link to which is added at the end of the excerpt).
Session #7 provides a poignant and personal account of Dennis’ journey to track down information on his grandparents who were both removed – as young toddlers – from their families and communities and placed in the Dunbow Indian Residential school around the turn of the (twentieth) century. First, some background information would be helpful in placing the following account into a wider context.
James Vital LeBlanc (Dennis’ grandfather) was of Metis ancestry, born in 1892 and raised in the Metis settlement just outside of Pincher Creek, Alberta. Leblanc was a prominent Metis name and clan, and James’ father Cornelius(Dennis’ great-grandfather) was an active member of the Red River Metis settlement (in what is now Winnipeg) around 1870 during the first Metis rebellion. James was five years old when he was taken from his family and shipped off to the Dunbow Residential school situated near High River, just south of Calgary.
Elizabeth Ann Musgrave (Dennis’ grandmother) was Native American, born and raised in Blackfoot country in the vicinity of Helena, Montana. It was traditional for the regional tribes to migrate north into what is now southern Alberta (for the summer months) and on one such journey, five year old Elizabeth was mistakenly picked up and sent to the Dunbow institution where she would later meet James, her future husband.
Dennis Lakusta was born in Edmonton in 1946… his father was of eastern European ancestry (Ukrainian) and his mother was Aboriginal, being the youngest daughter of James and Elizabeth. Dennis’ birth father abandoned his mother shortly after he was born. Dennis was taken away from his mother when he was nine months old, became a permanent ward of the Alberta government and was shunted through seventeen foster homes and religious institutions before quitting school at age sixteen. It was government policy (assimilation) to keep native children away from their family and culture during their wardship so Dennis was finally re-united with his mother’s side of the family in his late teens. His grandfather had passed away by that time but Dennis did enjoy meeting his grandmother for brief visits over the next year or so. Having established no deep, familial bond – especially during his youth – Dennis drifted away and lost touch with his family and through an acquaintance he learned that his grandmother had passed away in the early seventies.
After a youth spent in and out of foster homes, reform schools and religious institutions, Dennis quit school early and took off for the west coast. Being raised in a notoriously racist province, he tried, understandably, to distance himself from his native ancestry. But a lingering curiosity about his grand parents remained with him well into his middle years and in the mid-1990’s, Dennis decided to put some time and effort into tracking down information on their history… especially their time spent at the Dunbow Indian Residential school.
His investigation began in the little town of High River, Alberta (just south of Calgary) near where the Indian school was built back in the early 1890’s. Dennis queried an assortment of townsfolk and merchants about the school but the responses he received back indicated only a vague recollection of its existence. A few people did remember that the institution burned down around 1920 and that any archival or historical records would be housed at the Glenbow Museum in Calgary.
A couple days later Dennis was in Calgary and phoned the Glenbow Museum and one of the archivists reiterated the fact that the Residential school had burned down in 1921 and most of the records had been destroyed by the fire. The archivist was very accommodating and suggested Dennis contact the Oblate’s head office in Edmonton. The Oblates were the Christian order – headed by Father Lacombe – who ran and administered the school. The next time Dennis was in Edmonton he tracked down the phone number for the Oblates and spoke to one of the nuns and mentioned his grandparents were residents of the Dunbow school. The nun sounded rather cool and suspicious about his inquiry. Her responses were short and abrupt, she said that the school had burned down and that she was not authorized to give out any information relating to the institution or the students. End of conversation.
Just when it seemed like Dennis’ little sleuthing adventure was running into a dead end, a friend suggested he try the Provincial Archives building located on 2nd avenue in west Edmonton. He phoned first and explained his situation and was told to come to the archives building because they had something that might be of interest to him. When he arrived at the building he was ushered into a small windowless room furnished with only a single table and one chair. The attendant checked to make sure Dennis didn’t have any concealed photographic equipment because the document he was about to view contained highly sensitive information. The attendant then brought in a large, heavy-looking ledger and placed it on the table and said it was the official register for the Dunbow Residential school that had somehow survived the fire in 1921.
Bingo!!
Dennis was left alone in the room with the register and no set time limit. The register resembled a typical ledger with heavy wooden covers (front and back) with two large metal pins protruding from the left edge that held the book together. He opened the heavy wooden cover and, with much anticipation, began to slowly scan the first few pages. Every set of double pages was laid out like a typical school register with about seventeen or eighteen horizontal lines stretching across both pages from the far left edge to the right. And from left to right about fifteen vertical columns were arranged with headings pertaining to information on each Residential school student. The first column was reserved for the child’s name, the second their date of birth, the third their tribe of origin and so on and so forth, right through to the final column whose heading read ‘status upon leaving’.
Having only his grand parent’s first and last names (Christian names) Dennis began the daunting task of scanning through the pages looking for their names. It was daunting because there were so so many pages…the register must have covered most or all of the years that the institution was in operation. No one from the Provincial Archive’s staff bothered him so he spent an hour and a half (or so) of uninterrupted silence.
Ten to fifteen pages into his search, Dennis began to notice something strange and somewhat disconcerting. He would scan though all the names in the left column and, before he turned the page, he also quickly glanced at the far right column titled ‘status upon leaving’ and started noticing the word ‘deceased’ appearing perhaps two or three times down along the column’s eighteen entries. As he progressed further into the register he noticed the same word ‘deceased’ showing up more often, sometimes as often as seven or eight times along each column.
Needless to say, Dennis became quite distracted by the discovery and in the end he didn’t find his grand parent’s names, but has been haunted ever since by the words ‘deceased’, ‘deceased’, ‘deceased’ occurring so many times in the register. How and why could so many children have died in the Dunbow Indian Residential school? Was it from disease, suicide or other causes? Were the children’s parents and extended families notified of the deaths? Were the children’s remains returned to their communities? Where were the children buried?
Session #7 will finish with an open discussion that attempts to answer some of the above questions.
(Note: Dennis’ first book completed in 2009 and titled ‘The Honour Song Trilogy’ is an extensive examination of Canada’s Indian Residential school tragedy which includes the critical issues of (1) deceased and missing children, (2) mass burials and unmarked graves at Residential school sites, (3) the horrendous death toll now estimated in the tens of thousands which includes (4) the thousands of victims who left the schools and died as adults from suicide, homicide, spousal abuse, alcoholism, drug over-dose, obesity and morbid obesity, etc…all afflictions which are related to and can be traced back to the trauma experience in the Residential schools. ‘The Honour Song Trilogy‘ can be accessed by following the links to the writing sub-site at www.dlakusta.org.)