by Sister Roselyn Heil
Sister Roselyn is pictured top right photo. She is standing next to Carole Kraft, an enrolled member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa
On September 30, the National Day of Remembrance for Indian Boarding School Survivors and their families, we gathered at St. Mary’s where there once was a boarding school and an orphanage administered by FSPA on the Bad River Reservation in Wisconsin. Here, all that remains is St. Mary’s church. While some good memories linger, we gathered under a large pine tree and were reminded of its witness to the mixed painful losses, shame, wiping out of culture and attempt to instill "tools" to survive a new dominating culture.
We honored Mother Earth and the drum of her heartbeat with Asemaa, sacred tobacco used by Ojibwe and other Indigenous communities. During the pipe ceremony, we sent our prayers through Air to Creator, blessing Sister Water who pulses through our bodies. We sent blessing gratitude to berries, fruit of a new generation of children and our future. We circled together, gathering as a group of 23 people who shared stories which brought them to this ceremony. There were stories some of us had never voiced before, words from their hearts, honored and open to healing. There were stories that honored past generations wounded, buried—the foundations which bring us to our now. Through listening to the stories and letting the words speak to my heart, I heard, “It didn’t just happen to me.”
Rooted by these threads of our past, their teachings offer to us the inner power to choose how we are to live today in the integrity of who we are.
Reflecting later at home, among the trees, breezes and bird songs on my deck, I linger for continual healing and remembering. I soaked in the stories and my spirit drifted across this land in sorrow and gratitude for the gifts of those who came before us, and prayed for healing back Seven Generations to bring wholeness to the one family of Creator’s work of Mother Earth into the next Seven Generations.
Learn More
Study: The Seven Generations Principle
Read or Listen: 'We survived, we are resilient': Remembering U.S. Indian boarding schools, NPR
Read: 'A troubled past: The Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration and St. Mary's Indian School," La Crosse Historical Society
Watch: Dark La Crosse Stories Episode 63: St. Mary's Boarding School
Take Action
The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition: Support Senate Bill 761