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	Group Hears Tearful Recounting of Abuse at Residential Schools By Elizabeth Bower Peterborough Examiner June 16, 2009 http://www.thepeterboroughexaminer.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1614557 Peterborough's Shirley Williams used to get so lonesome in her residential school, where she was physically and emotionally abused, that she'd sometimes crawl under her bed covers and imagine she was in her family's kitchen with her mother and father. During these stolen moments, says the Ojibwa woman, she'd have imaginary conversations out loud in Anishnaabe -- the language she was forbidden to speak at St. Joseph's Residential School in Spanish, Ont. Williams, a retired Trent University professor, recalls a nun pulling the covers off her and asking what she was doing. "Praying, Sister!" she recalls replying. The anecdote drew laughter at last night's Kawartha Truth and Reconciliation Group meeting held at the Peterborough Public Library. But Williams knows there's not much to laugh over from those dark times. It was 1949 and Williams was 10 years old, living with her parents in the Wikwemikong reserve on Manitoulin Island, when a priest took her away, like other First Nations children, to be assimilated into western culture through residential schools. She still shudders, she says, whenever she hears a slap because it brings back memories of public beatings of the children and sounds of continual slaps behind closed doors. She spent six years at the school and when she went home each July and August, she says her father always told her, "Don't forget your language; don't forget who you are." Williams is now a member of the Kawartha Truth and Reconciliation Group, formed a about a year ago and made up of 12 people who meet regularly to share stories and promote healing from the legacy of physical, emotional, cultural and sexual abuse in Canada's residential schools. During last night's meeting, 42 people listened to guest speaker Marlene Brant Castellano, professor emeritus with Trent University's Indigenous Studies department and a recipient of the Order of Canada. "When we take in food, we assimilate it, we transform it so it's no longer recognizable and then use it for our own energy," Castellano told the audience. "That's what residential schools intended to do ... But they didn't complete the job. Because we're still here." Castellano was involved in the launch of Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2008. She said part of the mission is to increase public awareness of the history of residential schools. She said Canada could create a museum with archived documents, akin to the Holocaust Museum in Washington D. C., to ensure the history of residential schools is never forgotten. Ken Purdon, who lives near Millbrook, is a member of the local reconciliation group and said he saw a lot of abuse of First Nations people when he worked on reserves as a United Church minister. He said native studies should be mandatory in Canadian school curriculum. "The original residents of this country have a lot to contribute to the wellbeing of this country," Purdon said. NOTE:Guest speakerMarlene Brant Castellanocried frequently during her address while speaking about abuse in residential schools and the resilience of survivors. "People who know me know I cry," she told the crowd while drying her tears with a tissue. "But if what I'm saying doesn't touch me then how can I expect it to touch others?"
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